The House on Possessed Hill
by zenfrodo
Summary: '70s show. Unexplained accidents, missing runaways, murder, child abuse - no one in Circle Hills will admit that evil walks in their midst. But when a mysterious girl begs the Hardys for help, Joe & Frank pit themselves against a cursed house & an angry mob out for blood in a terrifying witch hunt - only to find that nothing is ever what it seems...
1. It was a Dark & Stormy Night

_Author Notes:_

_A little something to keep you busy; I'm enmeshed in "The SF Vampire", but Frank, Joe & Kris just would not shut up about THIS tale. _

_Frank & Joe Hardy, their dad Fenton and Aunt Gertrude belong to the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Those characters __as portrayed here__ are from the 1970s TV show, "The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries", created by Glen A. Larson. This tale is based on the episode "House On Possessed Hill" by Michael Sloan; the characters of Stacy & Mrs. Blaine, Grant, Sheriff Hollister, Allen, and Dr. Mann belong to the show…though my re-interpretation of them is strictly my own. _

_Please note: the show sets Bayport in MA, and that's what I run with; Fenton's a widower, with Aunt Gertrude living with the family to help raise the boys. I try to reconcile blue-spine canon with the show when I can, but the show trumps all. __**This tale is a prequel to my AU series**__, set roughly three years before "Blood Circles: Voodoo Doll"; Frank & Joe are 17 & 16, here._

_Young'uns, take note: this tale is set mid-'70s. That means no cellphones. No computers. No iPods. No CDs or MP3s. They barely had cassette players in cars, but I couldn't stand the thought of the brothers ruining their van with an 8-track player. _

_With that in mind, all the OTHER characters & situations not mentioned or referenced above are © 2012 RabbitHorseRunning Studios. _

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><p><em>###<br>_

_Circle Hills, MA_

It was late, around 11 PM by the time Joe Hardy had hit Circle Hills, and he'd been driving through rough weather the whole way — maybe this particular storm was technically a nor'easter, but manhandling the van through these winds felt more like attempting a hurricane. He leaned partway out of the van, struggled to hold the door still as the wind nearly blew it from his hands. "Sorry I'm late."

"It's okay." Kris Mountainhawk shook herself, blinked; she sat on the front porch of the neat ranch-style house, staring at the sky. She was in her usual gray sweatshirt and faded jeans, a plain, small, serious blonde, about a year younger than Joe, as opposed to Joe's loose bohemian casual. "I was enjoying the show. Pretty neat."

Joe grinned, shaking his head. Calling the lightning displays _'neat'_ was a distinct understatement tonight. "You and storms, tagalong, I swear. If I got struck by lightning, you'd only go 'wow'."

"Only if it left a fulgurite. Then I'd add you to my collection." Not even a hint of a smile, as usual; Joe wasn't entirely certain she was joking. Kris pushed herself up from the porch swing, grabbed her duffle bag, poked her head in through the front door and called something into the house. Then she dodged through the winds and sheets of rain to the van, climbing in to stretch out on the back seat. "I was starting to worry — the Walkers had the scanner on. Main road south has tree falls all over. State patrol closed it down for the night."

"Don't remind me." Joe was certain he'd seen some of those trees falling in his rear-view. He'd just gotten his driver's license and grabbed any opportunity to drive, but tonight had been flat-out scary. He'd volunteered to deliver papers to one of his dad's clients in Wareham earlier this evening, before the storm had roared up to nor'easter status, surprising everyone, including the weather forecasters.

Kris's adoptive mother, Mar, had been over at the time, chatting with Aunt Gertrude over coffee; Mar and Kris were the Hardys' next door neighbors. Mar had asked if Joe would mind going a little out of his way to pick up Kris from Circle Hills. Given the state of the roads and the storm, Joe was glad he'd agreed. It gave him company on the way home and someone to help him stay awake.

"Y'know," Kris said hesitantly, as Joe started the van back up, "the Walkers would put us up for the night. Might be better to wait the storm out and head back in the morning."

The Walkers were Mar's business colleagues; Mar was a consultant for some R&D company in Boston. They'd offered Kris a temp job doing research on a special project in Circle Hills, and Kris had jumped at the chance. Joe, though, didn't feel right about asking total strangers if he could stay in their home. "It's only about an hour. I'll be fine."

There were sounds of rummaging, then Kris leaned into the front, handed him a cassette. "Okay, be that way, big brother. Happy belated birthday, then."

David Bowie's "Station to Station". It'd been out for a while, but Joe hadn't had been able to find it. Bayport's one record store wasn't exactly cutting edge, its owner distinctly uncooperative in obtaining anything he deemed 'inappropriate'. "Tag…_wow…"_

"It'll help keep you awake." She was actually smiling a little, shy, embarrassed.

He grinned his thanks, spared a moment to shove the tape into the van's deck, then turned his attention back to the road as jangly guitar and synthesizers filled the van. He wasn't her real brother, but by now, that distinction didn't matter. He and Frank had unofficially adopted Kris as their 'kid sister' years ago, after they'd found out about the little runaway's abused past from their dad — so Frank and Joe had decided that she needed a pair of big brothers to help her…

Joe bit back a curse, wrestled with the steering as a gust of wind caught the van broadside. The winds had picked up even _more_, and debris, branches, and trash cans were blowing all over the road, already slick and flooded with water.

It seemed to take forever to get to the outskirts of town, and no sooner had Joe turned onto route 28 — pitch-black with the storm and covered in debris — than _something _white jumped into the road, directly in front of the van. He yanked the steering wheel to the left, barely avoided whatever-it-was as the van slewed to a stop. Kris yelped, fell hard against the back of the driver's seat.

"You okay?" Joe started — but then the passenger door yanked open, and a girl in a loose white dress and wind-tangled wet blonde hair scrambled in, her eyes wide.

"Help me — they're chasing me — I don't know what they'll do to me this time!"

She looked about eighteen, but her voice was childish, high-pitched with fear. Joe still hesitated, then heard voices — angry yells, curses, and he spotted a group of men in the trees, pointing towards the van. That decided him; he floored the gas.

"Ow," Kris said from the back, picking herself up, and the newcomer startled, stared. "One of these days, I'll be with you and _not_ have trouble drop in out of nowhere, and I'm gonna die of shock."

"You and me both," Joe said dryly, but turned a glare on the newcomer. Despite his irritation, he couldn't help noticing she was _beautiful,_ bright green eyes, long white-blonde hair, round dimpled face. Suddenly he was glad he'd ditched the dorky argyle sweater in the back, the moment he'd gotten outside Bayport — Aunt Gertrude kept insisting on it, but Joe _hated_ it. "Mind telling us what this is all about?"

She only stared out the window.

Great. One of those. "At least tell us who you are, before I dump you back in the middle of the road."

The wide-eyed gaze turned on him, as if looking right through him; Joe swallowed, hard. "I'm Stacy. Stacy Blaine."

Joe heard Kris make a noise. He glanced in the rear-view mirror, but it was too dark to see Kris's expression in the backseat. He let a little of his irritation go. "Okay, fine. My name's —"

"— Joe. I know."

"You _know?" _

Stacy shrugged. "I know things. I can feel things."

"Not hard to know things," Kris said, "when it's right in front of you." She leaned forward, tapped Joe's cassette box, his name in permanent marker scrawled on top of it.

Joe gave her a _look_. Kris blushed, looked away, retreated back to the backseat, and Joe sighed — he hadn't meant it like that. If Stacy wanted to play mysterious, it was fine with him. However… "Y'know, in most cases, I don't mind being an accessory," he said to Stacy, who was glaring towards the back. "But I'd like to know what I'm being an accessory _to."_

Again, that wide green-eyed innocence stared at him. "I didn't do anything!"

"Right," Kris said, and Joe startled; he'd never heard her sound like that before. Normally she was gun-shy and quiet around strangers, period. "Those people were chasing you for absolutely nothing."

Stacy huffed and slumped in the passenger seat, returned to staring out the window. Joe stared briefly into the rear-view. "Kris…"

Kris didn't back down. _"You_ said it. She's just made us accessories to something. Unless _you_ wanna explain everything to Mar and your dad."

Or worse, Aunt Gertrude. And from their angle, those men would've easily seen his license plates. Joe drove on in silence for a bit, waiting for an answer from Stacy. Then, when the silence continued, he started to pull over.

"No, wait," Stacy said, pleading, looking at him again. _ "Please_…you wouldn't _understand!"_

Those brilliant green eyes made it hard for Joe to breathe. But he stopped at the side of the road, waited, though he glanced quickly in the rear-view — no one on the road behind them, yet. "Why don't you try me?" When she still said nothing, Joe jerked the van fully into park, settled back as if he was willing to wait forever. He hoped it looked as adult and mature as it did when Frank did it. "Try me. You can't tell a story worse than the tagalong back there does."

"Thanks a lot," Kris muttered.

Stacy stared straight ahead. "A little girl was hurt. In a car accident."

Wonderful. Just what he needed to hear. Joe gave her a steady stare. "Were you involved?"

"I saw it."

Oookay. "But if all you did was see it —"

"I saw it before it happened," Stacy said defiantly, staring him down. "In every detail." Each syllable was careful, relished. "And I told her father exactly how and when it would happen. And it did." She sounded proud. "They say I'm a witch."

Joe just looked at her. Great. Stacy was obviously not playing with a full deck. A mysterious, beautiful girl jumped into his van on a stormy night, and she had to be crazy; that wasn't how his fantasies were supposed to go. Frank would never let him live it down.

More disquieting, though, there was total silence in the backseat. Joe glanced again in the rear-view. Given how much Kris loved this kind of thing, how often she chattered about all the spooky psychic nonsense, Joe expected _some_ reaction from her. But…nothing.

Well, being delusional wasn't a crime. It definitely didn't deserve being chased down by a mob. Especially not a beautiful girl. Delusional or not, fantasy or no fantasy, Joe didn't have the heart to shove her out into the rain. He sighed and started up the van again, continued down the road. He was about to ask Stacy where she lived, to just take her home; maybe she'd be grateful enough to show some appreciation —

"You're not a witch." Quiet, from the backseat. "Real witches wouldn't be so happy about a kid getting hurt."

Stacy swiveled in the seat, but then gave Joe a quick glance, subsided, said nothing. Joe checked the rear-view again; there were headlights back there, a ways behind them. At this time of night, on a back county road. Great.

"So you said you saw things," Kris went on, still quiet, "like this's happened before."

Something about her voice…Joe glanced back. "Shouldn't you be arguing her side, tag?"

"There —" Stacy broke in suddenly, pointing. "Turn there."

Joe barely caught the turnoff, swung the van onto it just in time and up the dirt road. "Your house is up here?"

Stacy didn't answer. She was sitting upright in the seat, peering out the windows, as if searching. They passed a squat, boarded-up building on the right, but Stacy gestured him on.

"Helloooo, Bates Motel," Kris muttered, and Joe grinned. They'd just seen 'Psycho' last week, one of the midnight shows at the Bayport Cinema, a group outing with friends; it'd been hysterical, watching Chet hiding his face through almost the whole movie.

"Yeah, well, if the violins start up, I'm out of here," Joe said, but then the van rounded the last turn of the dirt road, and an old, dilapidated Victorian house loomed into view, perched on top of the hill. Gray, weather-worn wood, arched windows, a falling-apart porch with shabby paint. For a moment, there was dead silence. Joe pulled up to the black iron gates, stopped, staring — talk about 'Psycho'… "You live _there?"_

"They won't follow us here." Stacy started to open the passenger door.

"_I _wouldn't follow us here." Beautiful or not, she had to be _insane. _ Joe grabbed her arm. "Who lives here?"

Stacy only smiled, enigmatic, challenging. "The dead."


	2. Suddenly a shot rang out!

_Author's note: the original ep had a HUGE plot hole: mainly, if Joe had the van, then how did Frank get to Circle Hills? And if he drove a second car, then what happened to the car at the end of the episode? EXPLAIN, show, EXPLAAAAAIN!_

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><p>It'd been a long, frustrating drive.<p>

Frank Hardy had gone with a couple of friends, Phil and Chet, on a day-trip out out to Quittacas Pond to help with a photography assignment for their art class, a pseudo-ad for a non-existent college, and in their words, "you _look_ like a prep school jock, we don't." They'd been out there longer than planned, until the sky started darkening, and the simple thunderstorm predicted for that night had roared up to a full nor'easter. _That _had resulted in two long detours due to downed trees and flooding, and Phil had finally called the drive quits for the night — the roads were too bad, the winds too strong, visibility non-existent. So now they were stuck in this small town in the middle of nowhere, Circle Hills.

Shame he hadn't known in advance that this was going to happen. Frank knew Kris was out here somewhere on some temp job with Mar's business associates; he wouldn't have minded dropping in on his and Joe's little tagalong and surprising her. But he didn't know where, or with who.

Frank wasn't tired at all, despite the late hour. He sat in the lobby of Circle Hills' one and only motel, some cheap carpeted-and-paneled thing that tried to look modern, but only succeeded with 'garish'. The place seemed to be a meeting spot for the locals, thanks to the in-house greasy-spoon diner just off the lobby.

"Frank?" Phil kicked the side of Frank's chair, grinned when Frank looked up. Half the afternoon at the pond had been spent by Phil tinkering with his new device for automated lens adjustments, the rest by Chet's expounding on photographic composition and other trivia about his latest obsession. "We're going to see if there's any pizza places open. Maybe get a few night shots of scary local life. You in?"

Which meant going out into the storm again. Trust Phil to come up with _that_ idea. "No, thanks. Go ahead. I'll be fine."

"It'd be my treat, since you put up with me and Chet's photo mania all day."

Now Frank smiled. "Seriously. I'm fine."

"Right," Phil snorted. "Only until a mysterious girl comes running in and drops trouble in your lap. I _know_ you, Hardy."

"If that happens," Frank said, "I'll ignore her."

Phil gave him an _I-know-better_ look, but sauntered off after Chet. Frank only shook his head, relaxed back into the chair. The locals were assorted, typical back-country, small-town Massachusetts, all in flannel, work jeans and heavy down jackets. A trio of those were huddled nearby, their voices agitated as they jabbered at what appeared to be the local sheriff, solemn-faced, uniformed, and scribbling judiciously in his notebook.

The words "wreck", "deliberate", and "we _know_ she did it" caught Frank's attention — then "murder" _grabbed_ it and held on.

"Some orange van," a man was saying, "came in'n' grabbed her — probably headed up t' Denham house, like as not."

"An instrument of the _devil,_" one of the women said.

Another spat. "More like some other fool the witch suckered in."

The sheriff sounded too patient, as if he'd heard all this before. "Did you get a license number?"

"Yeah, AG 9242, state plates —"

_That_ had Frank sitting up in shock. That was his and Joe's van — what in the _world_ — what was _Joe_ doing out here?

The movement attracted the attention of the sheriff, who eyed Frank with bleary-eyed suspicion. "Let's get out of the lobby," the sheriff said to the trio, and ushered them away.

Oh dear God — "witch", talk of the devil, their van…and Kris was supposed to be out here, their tagalong who wouldn't shut up about spooky supernatural stuff. Frank pushed up from the chair, trying to make it appear casual, and approached the front desk. The clerk blinked up, then looked annoyed when he realized that Frank was going to give him something to do.

"Pardon me," Frank said, hoping that this time, for once, hearsay and his jump-to-an-all-too-obvious-conclusion were completely and utterly wrong, "but where's Denham house?"

At this point, he'd _take_ the mysterious woman running in. It'd probably be much better than whatever the annoying younger brother and the tagalong had gotten into _this_ time…


	3. A door slammed!

Lightning cracked overhead; rain sheeted down, turning everything into a dark morass. Joe only stared at Stacy. He couldn't have heard that. She couldn't have said that.

"It was made by those who are dead, and the dead keep it," Kris muttered, from the backseat. "The way is shut."

It had the sound of a quote; Joe decided not to ask. Stacy, though, startled, then glared.

"Oh, you recognize it?" Kris sounded way too innocent.

Stacy only pulled from Joe's grasp, slammed the van door behind her, and started up the hill, towards the house.

Joe wavered — part of him wanted to drive off and forget he'd ever met the girl, but she was obviously in some kind of trouble. Big trouble. And very pretty. He couldn't forget that part. He sighed, shoved open the van door to go after her.

"Figures," Kris muttered, squeezing past the front seats, obviously intending to follow. "She looks like Galadriel on an acid trip — she can't even be _original._"

"No, tag!" Joe stopped her. "Stay here. Please." He heard sounds of car tires in mud, further down the hill, saw flashes of headlights on leaves and brush; Kris opened her mouth. _"Please._" Joe shook her shoulder for emphasis and shoved the van keys into her hand. "If this goes bad,_ get out._ Go for help." He glanced back down the road — a car was just making the last turn. "Hide in the back. Stay out of sight."

She met his gaze, then nodded, slid quickly into the back of the van.

Joe took off running up the hill, a steep, treacherous climb made worse by mud and slick grass, and that long grass hid mole hills, ankle-turning rocks, dead branches. He made the porch just as the cars and trucks were screeching up to the gates; he shoved the front door open, stumbled in, slammed it behind him, then looked around frantically for something, _anything_,to block the door with.

Wait…

He took another look. A deadbolt?

For that matter, for such a dilapidated-looking house on the outside, the windows were un-broken and the door was surprisingly solid. Joe slid the deadbolt home, then pulled the curtains on the door window back slightly to look out. Down by the gates, men had gathered in front of the van, arguing and gesturing towards the house. A few moved up closer, yelling — the word "witch" ringing through loud and clear.

Dear God, hopefully they wouldn't spot Kris.

Breathing out hard, Joe let the curtains fall back before the men noticed him, but then stopped again, rubbed the lace between his fingers. It felt dusty and a little sticky, but still not as worn or threadbare as he would've thought, given how the exterior looked.

Oookay. This wasn't making sense.

Joe turned. He stood in a large foyer, solid intact stairs complete with spindle-railing — and carpeting — leading up to the second floor. Oil paintings of spooky children in Victorian garb covered the walls. Above him, a chandelier thick with cobwebs. A table in the foyer held books; an old-fashioned high-backed chair was next to it, along with a grandfather clock. Spiderwebs and dust covered everything, but other than that, the place didn't look abandoned, not at all.

Now it _really_ wasn't making sense. He'd explored abandoned houses before, with Frank and Kris alongside and Kris chattering about whatever ghost story she'd read that day. Usually such places were a wreck. Thieves and vandals would grab everything not nailed down and destroy the rest, and what the vandals didn't get, the weather and elements did.

He couldn't stop shivering; probably just the cold rain. But something about the place felt off, like something was watching — no, he was letting his imagination run away with him. Old spooky house did _not_ equal ghosts, no matter what the tagalong or a crazy beautiful girl said. As Joe stared around, an open door on the other end of the foyer slowly squeaked closed, then swung open again.

"Stacy?" Joe went to the door, just as it swung closed, and grabbed it, yanked it back. A small dining area and kitchen, complete with an ancient gas-oven and icebox, but otherwise empty…and clear of spiderwebs.

And it had a back door.

Joe went over — another deadbolt, and he locked that one, too. It probably wouldn't hold if the men were angry or desperate enough to put effort into it, but still…

He stopped in the middle of the floor. The kitchen wasn't just clear of spiderwebs, it was in good repair, for an abandoned house. The counters were clean, the cabinets un-rotted. He went over to the sink, tried the faucet; the water was still on.

Maybe the house wasn't that abandoned…which meant he could add trespassing on top of everything else tonight. Wonderful.

He went back out to the foyer. The feeling of being watched scraped his nerves again, doubled, tripled, and Joe backed up, stared at the second floor landing. No one up there that he could see, no movement. But there was flickering light under a door to his right, and he smelled wood smoke. He slid the door open, stopped in surprise. A full fire roared in the fireplace…

…and Stacy sat in a rocking chair in front of that fire, rocking back and forth.

"Y'know," Joe said, trying to ignore the fire and not entirely succeeding — _no way, she had no time to build that_, a decidedly-spooked corner of his brain insisted — "there's an angry mob out there, and they seem to be chasing you. Daydreaming in front of a fire is _not_ a survival skill right now."

"They won't come in here," Stacy said dreamily. "He'll protect me." She was looking around, unfocused, not seeing him. "Don't you hear her?"

"Hear who?"

"_Her._ She just screamed. Now she's crying. Soft, heartbreaking sobs."

Joe throttled his anger. Shaking her probably wouldn't do any good, and he didn't want to hurt her, yet. "Look, me and Kris just put ourselves in a lot of danger for you. '_They won't come in here'_ is _not_ an answer and _not_ an option!"

Her gaze settled on him again. "You're very kind to have helped me. I didn't mean to drag you into all this. Other people's troubles should be their own."

"Yeah, well, I have a tendency to get involved in other's problems," Joe snapped. _She_ was the one who'd jumped in front of his van, but it was hard to keep that in mind, looking into those green eyes again. "Look, we need to get out of here. We can probably get out the back before they figure it out —"

"It's okay, Joe." Unconcerned, child-like. "They won't come in here. They're scared."

It had to be his destiny to be a confused straight-man for spooky girls. "Scared of _what?"_

Her smile was feral, just a hint of bared teeth. "The house."


	4. The maid screamed!

On the floor behind the driver's seat, Kris huddled in the darkness and prayed none of the men out there had the bright idea of actually checking the van to see if anyone was still in it. Their rage, despair, and fear battered at her mental shields, loud, strident, wailing in her head.

Being Gifted tended to be more pain than blessing, but right now, she'd take anything that could possibly help them survive this.

The men were right outside, by the passenger door. Slowly, not wanting to chance sudden movement that might catch their attention, she reached for her duffle bag, pulled out her sheathed Bowie knife — Army surplus, a gift from Joshua — strapped it onto her belt and leg, and, most important, invoked the small bit of magic that allowed it to go unnoticed. It wasn't much, but just having it at hand made her feel a little safer.

This wasn't what she'd expected. It wasn't what she wanted. All she wanted was to go _home_, not get involved in a mob lynching. She forced herself to breath, deep, slow. Panicking wouldn't help. She was supposed to be a Blade, a hunter, a guardian for the Association, even if only in training. She was supposed to be able to deal with stuff like this.

Right. She couldn't even get Frank and Joe to accept this stuff existed, let alone get Joe to admit to _his_ Gift. So much for dealing.

She'd been so proud when the Walkers had asked her to come out to Circle Hills. Tom Walker was a former Blade out of NYC; he'd settled in the Massachusetts' farm country to raise a family, and he and his wife were helping the Association's new Boston Center get started, along with Mar. But odd things had been happening in Circle Hills, accidents, rumors of so-called witchcraft, things that Tom couldn't get much info on, as the locals saw him as an outsider.

Such things tended to drop heavy trouble on all the psychically Gifted, innocent or not. So the Walkers had invited Kris to visit — a small, plain, easily-ignored teen who was good at fading into the background — in the hope that _she _might pick up what _they _could not.

"_Try your wings, little feather,"_ Mar had said. _"Just listen. Snoop. Let Tom know what you learn." _ She'd smiled fondly. _"Try not to get into too much trouble."_

Yeah. Right.

Kris breathed out as the men moved away from the van and their emotion-storm faded to the bare edge of her range. She eased up just enough to peer through the windshield. They stood by the gates, arguing, gesturing violently towards the house.

She saw guns. At least two shotguns.

Oh dear god. Hopefully Joe had sense to not show himself in any of the windows.

Kris knew of Stacy Blaine, but hadn't met her until tonight; it'd been a shock to learn just who had scrambled into the van. All the gossip, all the stories, all the rumors, Stacy had been at the center of them. Stacy had a reputation for being _weird, _for seeing things, for predicting accidents to people who crossed her, for being a _witch_ and cursing those predictions into reality. But Stacy had also been seen a little too close to the last couple accidents, before they'd happened.

Until tonight, Kris hadn't been able to see her directly, hadn't been able to confirm if Stacy _was_ Gifted.

Stacy certainly, most definitely, was _not._ Which left only one reason for those accidents…

Now, _another_ accident, according to Stacy. An accident where a little girl was hurt. That Stacy had evidently bragged to that little girl's father about.

Stupid sociopathic _bitch._

Still moving slowly, carefully, Kris reached past the passenger seat to the window crank, eased the window down just a crack, enough to hear the voices.

"We won't wait for them to come out!" Loud, angry, horrifyingly clear. "Burn it down! Let her burn in hell for what she did to my baby girl!"

Horror froze Kris in place. She knew that voice, Grant Stevens — he lived next door to the Walkers; his daughter, Jenny, was an impish eight year old. Even though Kris had only been there a week, she'd become friends with the little giggly sprite, happily racing her to the local diner for milkshakes whenever Kris had a spare moment — and not-so-coincidentally, giving Kris a prime opportunity to listen to the locals' gossip. It'd amused both the Stevens and the Walkers to see a supposedly mature and far-too-reserved 15-year-old giggling and horsing around with the much-younger child…

_That_ was the accident? And Stacy had _bragged_ about it? She was _proud_ that little sprite had gotten hurt?

For a fierce, raging moment, Kris didn't move. If it hadn't been that Joe was in the house, too, she would gladly help the men fire the place to cinders.

"No, Grant!" one of the men shouted. "That's murder! We don't know who else is up there. _We don't know who they are._ I'm not going to kill someone who's innocent!"

"_It's not your daughter dying!"_

No. _No_. She couldn't just sit and do nothing. She couldn't let it happen, not to Joe, not to anyone, especially not to those men. It would turn those men into murderers — the grieving, despairing _Grant_ into a murderer — and that would rip him away from his family, his little girl, just when they needed him most.

_Be aware of your choice…_

"I'm not going in that house to get the witch," another man snarled. "It's cursed. 'Bout time we took care of it, and _her_ too!"

"My daughter's _dying," _Grant's voice broke, shattered on grief, "because of that _monster_ in there!"

Somehow, Kris forced herself to move. She had to get up there. She had to warn Joe and get them out of the house.

She eased into the driver's seat — the men weren't facing the van, they were watching the house — and carefully, quietly, eased the door open, slipped out. She glanced quickly back towards the other cars: no one else there.

But the men were right in front of the iron gates, watching the house, and the hill leading up to the door — at least, from the front — was full of long grass and no other cover. She'd be an exposed, stupid target.

Shivering in the rain, Kris peered past the van, ran her gaze along the counter-clockwise edge of the hill and grounds. There were trees in that direction, thickly clustered and bare at the base of the hill…wait…wait…_hill?_

The surrounding area was all flat farmland and forest, all of it; this was the Massachusetts lowlands. This hill stood in isolation, an anomaly jutting out from the landscape…then Kris swallowed a groan, as she realized what she had to be seeing. An Indian mound. Some idiot had built that old house on top of an _Indian burial mound._

Stacy had said "the dead" lived here. Great. Just great.

Okay. Get Joe out, toss Blaine to the mob, then tell Mar to bring the wrath of the area tribal councils down on the collective heads of the Circle Hills' city hall. Easy.

Right.

Kris ducked back behind the van, as some of the men turned, eyed their cars nervously. First, she had to _get _to the house. A discarded white-plastic bag fluttered in the trees; Kris watched it, thinking. Stacy had been running through a dark, stormy forest in a white dress. Between the rain, the darkness, and the uncertain light…

Peering back around the van, Kris studied the bag. It should be in range of her meager Gifts. She focused, reached down, in, then _out, _stretching as far as she could mentally. Not much, nothing major, just a touch of seeming, a spark of glow, set it free of the branch to catch the ground-level wind…

"_There! Over there! She's in the trees!"_

Even that little bit of Gift-use left Kris gulping air, but she didn't dare take the time to recover. The men ran towards the trees, and she took off in the opposite direction. Slipping in the wet weeds and mud, keeping low and behind what little cover there was, she circled clockwise around the base of the hill towards the back of the house. Hopefully it had a back door; she didn't dare try the front. The distraction probably wouldn't hold past something so obvious as an _oh-shoot-me-now_ target standing openly on the front porch.

Back door — Kris breathed a sigh of relief, swung onto the back porch…and found it locked.

_Who locks a door to an abandoned house?_

Then again, Joe wasn't stupid, either. Though coming up here — no, be fair, they'd both thought Stacy was directing them to her house, until it'd been too late. Though to be _really_ fair, Kris'd also caught how Joe had been looking at Stacy.

_Boys. _Kris leaned up against the door, tried to see past the curtains covering the door-window — there, the deadbolt, barely in her line of sight. Please, don't let it be rusted shut…

"_Hey!"_

Kris startled — two men at the far corner of the building. Fear jolted her Gift, hit the deadbolt in a thrust of panicked telekinesis, and she all but fell through the door, barely slammed it shut and shot the bolt home again before they reached her. Then she backed away fast, getting out of sight of the windows — she hadn't seen those two holding guns, but…

She was in a kitchen. A kitchen in surprisingly good shape, given the exterior of the house. Dripping rainwater, Kris only stared around, fighting to get her shaking under control — something else was wrong, something about the house, it scraped against all her nerves — but then the door rattled, shadowy shapes visible through the window curtains. Kris bolted through the interior door, into the foyer —

— and nearly ran Joe down. Surrounded in a faint halo of clear light, he brandished a length of firewood, raised up and ready to strike.

"_Tag!"_ Joe grabbed her, stopped her from tripping over him and into the floor. "How did you —"

"They've got guns," she blurted out, blinking to get her Sight to clear; she did _not_ need her Gift acting up right now. "Shotguns. And they're going to burn the house down!"

Joe breathed something that she didn't catch; his grip tightened. "Okay. Okay. Sorry I yelled. C'mon." He pulled her after him, into another room off the foyer.

Stacy sat in a rocking chair by a fireplace, rocking slowly back and forth, apparently unconcerned. Despite her panic, Kris stared. A fire? _Now? _ What was _wrong_ with this girl?

Before Kris could snap at the bitch, something under her feet shifted, below the floor, as if its attention was caught, focusing, _hungry_…

"We have to get out of here," Joe said, to Stacy; his voice was almost gentle, as if scared of startling her. "They're talking about fire —"

"They won't come in here," Stacy said. "They're too scared. _He'll_ protect me. He said he'd take me away."

There was a pause. "Who?" Joe said, before Kris could get her brain to catch up.

"Him." Stacy seemed to be staring at one of the paintings, a dark, older man in Victorian clothing. "This is _his_ house."

She was pulling a spooky act when — _let 'em burn in hell for what they did to my baby girl. _ Rage and fear had Kris's mouth. "Leave her, Joe. They don't want to kill _us._ We can walk out, tell 'em we're just stupid kids, and they'll let us go. Let _her_ burn!"

"_Burn?" _Stacy twisted around to stare.

"Yeah, _burn," _Kris snapped. "As in toss gasoline, light match, watch _you_ go up in flames, and _good riddance!_"

Stacy shoved to her feet.

Joe wrenched Kris around. "I don't _believe_ you just said that!"

"That little girl she _bragged_ about? She was _eight_," Kris said, fierce, defiant. _"I know her. _ They're not saying this bitch _saw_ it —"

"_Kris!"_

"— _they're saying she did it!"_

"That's the mob talking, tag," Joe snarled. "Mobs don't think. _Mobs don't have proof!"_

Lightning exploded directly overhead, shaking the whole house and rattling everything in the place, deafening them; both Kris and Joe yelped, hit the floor. The lights flared, fiery, brilliant, and with a groaning squeal and flash, the chandelier above them blew out, shattering glass everywhere.

When the noise finally died away, they both stared at the shattered chandelier for a long, trembling moment. "I take it back," Kris said, weak, shaky; the _something _below the floor seemed to have retreated, for the moment. "You'd make a _lousy_ fulgurite."

"You're so comforting," Joe said, just as shaky, as he helped her up. Then, suddenly, "Wait — this place has _electricity?_" But he stopped. "Stacy…?"

Kris turned. No one else in the room.

But the front door was wide open.


	5. A pirate ship appeared on the horizon!

"Stop here," Frank said, thumping Phil on the shoulder. The motel clerk's instructions had been sketchy, at best, but this was the only turn-off in this direction off 28, and up ahead was the only large hill for _miles, _an anomaly here in the lowlands. But Frank didn't want to chance going any closer, not in a car, not if it might alert whoever was after his brother or Kris.

Phil rolled his eyes again, but pulled his car over to the shoulder, right next to a decrepit, boarded-up building. "You know, when I said that about the mysterious woman, I was _joking_, Hardy."

"It's not a mysterious woman," Frank said patiently, then re-thought that. "Well, _maybe._ If you can call the tagalong that."

"God forbid," Phil said dryly. "How long do I wait?"

Frank had been about to slide out of the car. The rain hadn't let up; it was going to be a wet, muddy walk. "Twenty, thirty minutes. Or less, if you see trouble."

"Feh, what counts as _trouble_ around you and Joe any more?"

"Angry mobs, gunshots, explosions," Frank said. "The usual." With that, he slammed the car door shut behind him, and headed at a fast jog up the dirt — correction, _mud_ — road. Precision, that was the key. Precision, logic, calm. And _logically_, he knew _precisely _what he was going to _calmly_ do to both Joe and Kris if they were mixed up in whatever trouble was going down.

After he found out what it was and helped them disentangle themselves, of course. Anything that used "witch" and "murder" in the same sentence couldn't be good.

Correction to previous plan, then: if Joe and Kris _were_ here, if they were okay, Frank was going to hug them first, _then_ kill them for doing this to him.

Frank hit the last bend and saw the cars parked pell-mell behind — of course — his and Joe's van, right up against the black iron gates. But Frank stared past it, towards the old, run-down house on top of the hill; it looked straight from 'Psycho'. Three guesses as to where the tagalong was, at least, and Frank really only needed one.

Soaked through and wiping rain from his eyes, trying to stay out of sight, Frank crouched low, darted from car to car, finally made it up to the van. No one in the van; he was close enough to hear the angry voices of the men near the gates, and he could see others in the trees and circling the house. That made no sense — so whoever the men were after wasn't in the house, then?

Then again, neither Joe nor Kris were stupid. If they were being chased, they wouldn't hide someplace so _obvious _that would trap them for these men to pick off at their leisure_._ Mar had been giving them scout-track-and-trail lessons all summer, out in the backwoods, and Joe and Kris had been gleefully humiliating Frank and their friends in those — those two versus a bunch of back country hunters? Frank would put his money on his brother and the tagalong, period.

"I don't want any part of your witch-hunt," one of the men snapped.

"Don't you dare get the sheriff!" Loud, angry.

"Don't _you_ dare think I'm going to stand by and let you kill innocent people!"

Think. _Think. _ Available evidence: definitely Joe was out here, _maybe_ Kris; Frank had to admit he was just jumping to conclusion on that point. Something had happened that made them leave the van, rather than staying mobile and heading for the nearest police station. Since they weren't here, they were either out in the area or in the house, and with all the men around, cut off from getting back to the van —

Correction: men with _guns._

Frank ducked. At least one shotgun. No shout, no shot; he hadn't been spotted. He waited a heart-pounding ten count, then slowly eased up to see around the van. Two men were still near the gate, watching the house.

Guns. _Guns. _Dear God, what had Joe and Kris _done?_

He cut off the panicked _what-ifs_: not productive, not helping. Focus on now. Carefully, slowly, Frank eased the front door of the van open, slid in. There, in the backseat, Kris's duffle bag. Okay. Proof enough.

Now what?

He ducked down fast, as one of the men passed the van and headed back towards the cars; Frank eased up again in time to see the same man carrying a red gasoline can back towards the gates and shouting for the others to bring lighters —

Oh dear God.

Frank breathed out hard, forced the panic down. He had to distract them somehow, clear a path for Joe and Kris to get to the van, somehow, someway.

His brain finally caught up. Frank shoved into the back, past the backseat, grabbing the emergency road kit they kept right next to the motorcycles. He pulled out the road flares and the lighter, scrambled out the rear doors, lit the first flare —

— and pitched it hard, towards the trees, a sailing arc of light and flame over the cars.

_Something_ out there was still dry enough to catch, then flare up. The men started shouting, running towards the fire, which_ roared_ up, engulfing a small sapling…

…as lightning struck the house, a brilliant, deafening _boom_ and blinding flash that reverberated through his whole body. Frank hit the ground, panting, as men yelled, screamed, fading away from the van.

Frank didn't wait. His heart still pounding from the jolt, he scrambled into the driver's seat, prayed that either Joe or Kris were watching, and flashed the headlights, deliberate Morse code, short short long short.

Someone burst from the house, running down the hill towards the van. Frank stared — a beautiful girl in a white dress, _definitely_ not Kris. The plain little tagalong had never worn a dress in her life, as far as Frank knew — and then the girl was running up to him, yanking the driver's side door open and grabbing his arm. She was breathless, green eyes wide and full of fear, rain-soaked blonde hair plastered against her face and neck — her white dress also soaked and plastered to near-transparency against her skin, too, Frank couldn't help noticing.

"Help me, please, they're going to _kill_ me — you have to get me out of here!"

Frank didn't know what or who, but that could wait. He slid out, shoved her in, towards the backseat. "In the back. Stay down." Then he slid back in. "Joe. Kris. They're with you?"

"_I don't know!"_ she wailed. "They're going to kill me — we have to get out of here!"

"Not without them," Frank said grimly, and continued flashing the headlights, praying…


	6. The King lived in luxury

Both Joe and Kris dived for the door, only for Joe to realize — open door, men with guns, _targets_ — and he grabbed Kris, yanked her short before she made it into the doorway. Her mouth opened, then snapped shut, and she sank back against the wall alongside the door, gulping air.

"Doorway, target _bad_, right," Kris breathed.

Still, there'd been no gunshots or shouts yet, and Stacy had presumably run through the door. The feeling of being watched had suddenly intensified; his nerves screamed at him to run. But Joe pressed his hand hard against Kris's shoulder — _stay here — _and eased forward just enough to peer through the doorway, to make sure the way was clear.

Kris jerked from his grip. "Someone's up there!"

Joe rounded, stared up the stairs, towards the second floor landing. Doors were now open up there, but nothing moved. "Tag, now is _not_ the time for ghosts!"

"_Ghosts don't cast shadows!"_

Joe's first thought was Stacy, but she couldn't be that stupid, to just run upstairs — but then Kris raised her voice.

"Whoever you are, they're going to burn the place down, get out of here!"

_Definite_ sounds from upstairs, something heavy dropped. Maybe just a hobo. Too much to worry about now. Joe eased forward, to peer out the door, and to his shock, a couple trees near the cars were engulfed in flames — _then _he saw the van's headlights flashing, a definite repeated pattern, short short long short — '_F'!_

Just as that hit him — "Frank's out there," Kris said.

Joe startled; Kris still faced the landing, still against the wall, unable to see through the doorway.

"_That_," Kris said fiercely, "is how it really works."

He'd figure it out later. "C'mon."

They scrambled through the door, jumped the porch stairs and hit the muddy grass at a dead run. The fire in the trees burned ferociously despite the rain; the men yelled, ran towards that fire, totally ignoring the house and the two scared-to-death teens running for their lives away from it. Whatever had set that fire, Joe was praying to it, please, _please_ let the distraction hold, don't let them see —

_Something_ loomed from the right out of the scrub and grass, just as Joe passed, but he rounded when Kris yelled; one of the men had grabbed her. Behind Joe, Frank yelled; the van door slammed. Joe slipped in the mud and wet grass, scrambled back to his feet, intending to tackle the man. No one, _no one_, was going to hurt their little tagalong, not while he was still standing —

— but Kris pivoted —

Joe didn't see exactly what happened, but the man collapsed, curled on the ground, swearing in breathless heaves and clutching at his groin, and Kris had yanked free, backed up. Joe grabbed her, pulled her around — a move that made him sweat later, in retrospect — Kris started to lash out, suddenly checked herself, wide-eyed and shaking.

The yelling around them increased — they'd been spotted. Joe shoved Kris ahead of him; she staggered, barely keeping her feet. They made it to the van, and Joe yanked the passenger door open, bodily hauled Kris up and all but threw her in, scrambled in after her. Frank hit the ignition, slewed the van around and floored the gas, as _something_ ricocheted outside, against the back of the van.

Kris fell between the front seats, hit the floor behind them, curled up over her knees, gasping in panting gulps. Joe collapsed back in the passenger seat, forced his breathing to slow, eyes closed, shivering and rain-soaked; _everything_ squelched. "Thank God for the big-brother calvary," he said shakily.

The van slowed — Frank rolled the window down, gesturing and yelling to someone out there, and Joe caught a glimpse of another car as they passed. "Who…?"

"Phil," Frank said shortly. He made the turn onto the main road so sharp and fast that Joe was slammed against the passenger door. But Frank turned briefly, reached back to Kris. "Tag, you okay?"

Joe twisted around; Kris was shaking her head. Behind the driver's side, huddled on the back seat, Stacy sat watching, her shawl drawn tightly around her. "You could say _'thank you',"_ Joe snapped at her. Then, more gently, he snagged Kris's arm. "Migraine?"

Kris shivered violently but nodded, still bent over her knees and curled on the van floor, hands around her head.

"Her bag's still back there," Frank said.

Joe squeezed back, glared momentarily at Stacy, but grabbed Kris's duffle bag. Kris had some weird blood-sugar problem, not diabetes, that triggered major migraines. Stress and major exertion were almost guaranteed to bring them on, and the last ten minutes definitely counted as _stress_, in Joe's book. He rooted in the duffle, found the nasal spray, helped Kris sit up. "Pills, too?"

Kris only nodded. Joe bit his lip: that bad, then.

"Joe, is there Coke in this cup up here?" Frank said.

Caffeine _and_ sugar. Thank _God_ for calm, collected older brothers. "Yeah…" Joe took the McD's cup as Frank passed it back, then held it steady for Kris to drink. "It'll be flat," Joe warned her, handing her a couple of the ergotamine pills — she was going to be good and loopy for the next couple hours.

"You're a good person, Joe," Stacy said softly. Caught off-guard, Joe blinked at her; she gave him a small, shaky smile. She looked so scared, vulnerable, huddled in the seat, arms crossed around herself, white dress soaked and plastered against her skin.

"We're going straight to the cops," Frank said. "Notice I'm _not_ asking you what I've just blundered into, little brother."

"You're all heart," Joe said dryly, then saw the Bowie knife strapped to Kris's side — oh dear God, please don't let her have used _that_ back there.

Kris was starting to relax and uncurl from her huddle, enough that Joe was able to help her get the knife unstrapped, and he unsheathed it, quickly checked it, then breathed out in relief as he shoved it into her duffle bag. No blood.

"I didn't," Kris croaked. "I'm not _that_ stupid." She rubbed at her temples. "I punched him. Hard."

Given how the man had been curled and what he'd been clutching…Joe grinned. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."

"Please," Stacy's voice trembled, "don't go to the cops. They won't believe me. They believe _them."_

"Forget it," Frank snapped, then lowered his voice; Kris had flinched at the loud sound. "Those men had guns and gasoline. They fired at us. That's called attempted murder."

Joe attempted to help Kris up to the actual seat, but she shook her head, stayed on the floor, eyes closed, hands still around her face. "Need dark."

_Really_ bad, then. "You're going to wash out as a detective, tag," Joe said lightly. "Can't even handle a small fight without malfunctioning."

"I'll leave the fighting to you and Frank." Muffled, pained. "I'll stick to playing Miss Marple."

"You'll leave the fight to me, you mean," Frank said. "Since Mr. Pacifist there is flunking karate because he won't hit anyone."

Trust Frank to say something like that in front of a mysterious pretty girl. Joe only pushed himself up to rummage briefly in the glove compartment. They'd taken to keeping candy bars there, just in case — the kind with coconut that Joe and Frank hated, so they wouldn't ever be tempted. Kris, though, had a horrible sweet tooth and loved the things. Joe passed one back, then shoved it firmly into Kris's hands when she tried to refuse it.

"Eat. You're not going to trigger another one."

"There's a diner at the motel," Frank said. "We'll get something real to eat after we're done with the cops. Now, would someone please fill me in, before I resort to cold-blooded torture on one of you three?"

"That 'one of you three' meaning me, of course," Joe said dryly. He couldn't help noticing that Stacy was watching him again.

"Oh good," Frank said, "you volunteered. Start talking."


	7. Meanwhile, on a small farm in Kansas

Dihydroergotamine, ergotamine, caffeine — one of these days, Kris was determined to find out who had invented all these words ending in "ine" and either hug them with piteous gratitude or slap the living daylights out of them.

_Gods_, she was loopy and dizzy. At least the visual-halos were gone and she could see clear, though any light hurt at the moment. But now her mind-shields were almost gone — thankfully, she was used to both Frank and Joe, even if Joe did think _loud. _Their auras and minds were clean, comforting, familiar.

_Stacy_, though, was another matter. A messed-up, screwed-up bitch of a matter that had Kris wanting to vomit all over that innocent-looking white dress.

They'd arrived at the sheriff's office; unfortunately, Kris couldn't stay in the comforting dark of the van. Frank urged her out so she could back up Joe's story to the sheriff, since Stacy was pulling a wide-eyed frightened-silent act. That fear was real enough, as far as Kris could tell between her minor Gift, the effects of the migraine, and the meds; her Empathy and telepathy were wavering in and out. Luckily, Sheriff Hollister understood about migraines because of his wife suffering them, too, so he didn't question why Kris stayed seated behind her 'big brothers', hands over her eyes to block out the light as best she could. Hollister had even turned the lights down in the office to help.

However, that was all the help he gave…on the surface.

"They were calling her a _witch!"_ Joe leaned over Hollister's desk. "A _witch!"_

Kris winced. Scratch that — Joe was a _screaming _thinker. Pills or no pills, even thoughts hurt at this point.

"I know what they were calling her," Hollister said calmly, a burly, rough-looking man with a gravelly voice. "My advice is to butt out of it."

Kris raised her head — what the sheriff _didn't_ say came through loud and clear, despite the pain and drug haze. The sheriff knew, he suspected, and didn't want to tip off the suspect, especially since said suspect was standing right there, clinging to Frank's arm while Joe ranted.

Hollister suspected that Stacy had _caused_ the accident.

That sealed Kris's mouth — Kris trusted both Frank and Joe completely, but when Joe was on one of his _right-the-injustice_ crusades, it was almost impossible to get him to shut up, no matter who was listening.

Not to mention that having to explain how she got the information would cross right into territory that neither of them believed, and, correctly, would be highly skeptical of.

"She was running through those woods for her _life! And you're going to do nothing?"_

"Sheriff," Frank broke in, matching Hollister's calm tone, "those men had guns. They shot at us. They were going to burn that house down, with these three still in it."

"You saw the guns? You saw them fire?"

"The bullet mark's on the van's back door," Frank said. "I saw a shotgun, a twelve-gauge. We heard the ricochet."

Hollister raised an eyebrow. "You can tell a bullet mark from a rock dent?"

"Yes, I can," Joe snapped. "I'm not _stupid." _The un-said _unlike-you_ hung in the air.

"Joe, take it easy," Frank said.

"_I'm not going to take it easy_ — those men wanted to kill her! They almost killed _Kris!"_

"You said he just grabbed her," Hollister said, calm, even. "He had a weapon, then?"

"No," Kris croaked, behind Frank, "he didn't."

"_Tag —"_

Kris managed to raise her head again. "I'm not going to lie, Joe."

"You heard them say they were going to burn the house down," Hollister said, to Kris. "Did you see the speakers? Recognize the voices?"

Kris hesitated, then shook her head, covering her eyes. So much for not lying. But she didn't want to send the grieving Grant to jail, not over Stacy, not when they hadn't been hurt. "They were arguing about it. Some didn't want to."

She _felt_ Stacy's glare, and that killed Kris's qualms over the lie. No, she was not going to let the little braggart win her power-trip so easy.

Hollister suspected, but Kris _knew._

"They were getting gas cans from their cars!" Joe leaned over the sheriff's desk again.

Hollister's tone was far too patient. "Did they use them on the house? Did they try to set a fire?"

Oh god, they had to get Joe off this line, or the sheriff would go out and investigate a fire that _Frank_ had accidentally started. But Frank beat Kris to it. "No," Frank said, as Stacy shook her head. "They didn't. They didn't even get near the house."

Now Joe rounded on his brother. _"Because we got out of there before they could!"_

"I can't arrest someone for something they didn't do," Hollister said evenly. "So exactly what charges do you want me to bring them up on?"

"I don't believe this," Joe snarled. "Try attempted murder. Or assault."

"They didn't fire at you —"

"They _did!_"

"Boy, a twelve gauge would've gone _through_ that van of yours." There was steel under Hollister's voice now. "They didn't set the house on fire. They didn't even try. They didn't shoot. And the only _physical _contact was one of them grabbing that little lady — but from what you said, _she_ did more damage to _him. _You're the girl who's been with the Walkers all week, right? You want to press charges?"

Great, that put her right in the middle. Joe was watching her, impatient, angry, and vibrating with _you'd-better-nail-the-idiot_, but Kris did not want that other man possibly reporting that she'd been carrying an illegal weapon. She shook her head.

"_Kris!"_

Frank was abruptly in front of Joe, blocking him from Kris. _"Calm. Down."_

"That man tries it again," Kris said, from clenched teeth; what Joe _hadn't_ said cut through far too clearly, and she barely clamped down the retort she wanted to spit at him, "he'll be _missing_ that body part."

"Fair 'nough." There was absolutely no smile in Hollister's voice. "Now," that, directed at Stacy, "if they continue to harass you, I can act. I'll have a word with Grant —"

"Yeah, you do your job real well," Joe said sarcastically. "That's so comforting."

Suddenly the burly sheriff was in Joe's face. "One more word," Hollister said, "and you'll spend the night in jail. I do not take lip from smart-mouth teenagers. I especially do not take attitude from detective wanna-be's telling me how to handle my town. Understood?"

Joe opened his mouth —

Sheriff Hollister only pulled out a pair of handcuffs and set them on his desk, in plain sight. And waited.

Silence.

"Now," Hollister said, back to calm, even, "I don't like what happened to you, any of it. You're upset. That's understandable. I said I'll speak to Grant and the others. Stacy, I'll have one of my men take you home. Your mother's been calling, she's worried —"

"We'll take her home," Frank said quietly. "Joe, Kris…"

They barely made it out to the street; Kris was surprised Joe lasted _that_ long. "I don't believe that idiot. He thinks I'm leaving it at that, he's crazy _—"_

"_Joe,"_ Frank broke in firmly, _"Calm. Down. _ Before I lock you in Phil's trunk." Joe opened his mouth, but Frank bore on, "If you hadn't yelled at him, he might've listened. If you hadn't insulted him, he might've taken us more seriously —"

"Whose side are you on?" Joe snarled. "And Kris, you should've pressed charges! What kind of coward are you?"

"What kind of idiot are _you?_" Kris snapped, despite the pain and exhaustion. "Bowies are _illegal._ I press charges, he says I had a knife —"

"_Enough,"_ Frank broke in again, firmer, louder, _"both_ of you."

Joe collapsed back against the van, not looking at her. Great. Just great.

"You were very brave tonight, Joe," Stacy said softly, her first words since they'd arrived at the cop station. She let go of Frank's arm, moved in front of Joe. "Thank you."

Then she kissed Joe gently, on the mouth — a kiss that got far too serious, given they'd just met — and before Joe could react, she'd pulled away, climbed into the van.

Kris bit back a groan. She didn't need telepathy to tell what was going through Joe's head right now: _pretty girl + angry mob + stupid angry cop + Pretty Girl! + I nearly got _killed_ + mystery! + _PRETTY GIRL!_ = **SHE KISSED ME!**_

Not to mention Stacy seemed to have triggered all of Frank's over-protective-big-brother buttons…though right now, Frank looked more amused than jealous over Stacy kissing his brother.

"Hey," Kris said plaintively, hoping to short-circuit Joe before he built up to another rant again, or, worse, he tried to start acting _mature_, "can we please just take her home and go crash? _Please?"_

"I'm not leaving until I know she's safe," Joe said stubbornly, to no one in particular.

Great. Stacy dragged them into this, set a lynch mob after them, ditched them in the middle of everything, but even though he'd been just as irritated with her as Kris had been, Joe was now solidly on Stacy's side. Just wonderful.

Maybe this is what Mar meant whenever she muttered about "teenage boys."

At least now Kris wouldn't have to find an excuse to stay in Circle Hills herself. She'd contact the Walkers and let them know things were heating up. With luck, maybe she'd now find something more definite, before they had to leave. Despite Joe's heat-of-the-moment promise, they all had school on Monday — Kris only had leave for the week.

"Well, we can't leave anyway," Frank said. "Not until they clear the roads." He sighed. "And here I thought this was going to be boring…


	8. a boy was growing up

_Author's note: The Zenna Henderson stories that Frank refers to are a series of awesome tales concerning a gentle group of aliens that crash on Earth, The People. Look for the collections "Pilgrimage" and "No Different Flesh"._

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><p><em>###<em>

_Frank had been eleven, and it'd been a really bad day. Nothing had gone right, from the D that he'd received on his book report to his bike blowing a tire on the way home to Aunt Gertrude getting way too nit-picky over the state of his and Joe's room. She'd made both brothers stay inside on that bright, sunny day until both sides of the room were done to her satisfaction, and Joe's half was the worst offender of the two of them. Even then, when the room was _finally _done, she'd made them go downstairs to do the same to their lab space in the basement._

_They'd found that Aunt Gertrude had already started, and that the collection of fingerprints that had taken Joe nearly two weeks to coax friends into giving had been tossed in the trash, because a) if they were important, you shouldn't have left them lying around like junk, and b) all this detective nonsense is not healthy for boys your age…_

_It had turned ugly: Joe had screamed at her, using swear-words that Frank had never thought his brother knew. _That_ had resulted in Aunt Gertrude slapping Joe, the first time she'd ever raised her hand to either boy, and Frank had stood struggling not to cry, wanting to scream at Aunt Gertrude, too, but not wanting the punishment. But Dad had come inside, heard the screaming — and Joe swearing — grounded the brothers, and ordered both boys upstairs to their room._

_Frank had run from the house instead, Joe at his heels, and Frank had been trying hard not to blow up at his brother. The last thing he'd needed today was a fight with Joe on top of it. _

"_I hate her," Joe's voice was thick, trembling. "I hate her. Mom never put up with her. Mom wouldn't've —"_

"_I know," Frank said. He wasn't going to cry. Big boys didn't cry. Real detectives didn't cry. They'd lost Mom to cancer last year; Aunt Gertrude had moved in during that long illness, to help Dad out. _

_Joe's threatened tears had erupted into more screaming. "No, you don't! You just stood there! You didn't help! You're supposed to be my _brother!"

_Maria Mountainhawk had been out front of the house next door, harvesting dandelions from the lawn. She and Kris had only moved in a couple months before, but already her place had become a hang-out for the brothers. It helped that Mar was the "cool" adult in the neighborhood among the kids, being a real, honest-to-goodness Navajo Indian — though the adults were starting to refer to her as the "What the hell is she doing _**now?"** _lady. Having her as their neighbor had increased Frank's and Joe's own cool-factor with their friends._

_Mar had looked up at Joe's outburst. "You two okay?"_

_They'd stopped in their tracks, Frank wiping his face and hoping neither Joe nor Mar had noticed. Mar hadn't moved, only watched them from her kneeling spot on the lawn, a basket of dandelion flowers and leaves beside her, obviously waiting for them to decide what they wanted to do. _

_Joe had shaken his head. Mar had waited, then when neither boy had moved or spoken, "Do you want to talk about it?"_

_That had broken their silence, an outpouring of hate and anger that Mar stilled with a raised hand and a meaningful glance towards the Hardys' home with its windows open for the warm spring air. Frank and Joe had followed her inside to her kitchen, had sat down and accepted the sodas (homemade root beer, of all things), but then Mar had stared at Joe. _

"_What happened to your face?"_

_Frank hadn't thought Aunt Gertrude had hit Joe that hard, but Joe's cheek had been marked with a bruise, growing darker. Joe had said nothing, glaring angrily and breathing hard, so Frank told the whole miserable story, the room cleaning, what their Aunt had done to their lab, the fight, the slap. Mar had listened — only getting up to get Joe a poultice to put on his face, something with the fresh grassy smell of crushed parsley — then, when Frank's words wound down and Joe still hadn't spoken, Mar finally spoke._

"_No one has a right to hit you. Especially not an adult who should know better." She let the words rest a moment, then, "Has your father seen this?"_

_Two simultaneous head-shakes. "He heard the fight," Frank said. "He grounded us."_

_Mar had laid a hand on Joe's arm. "Do you want me to call him over here?"_

_Joe still only glared, arms crossed, obviously not trusting a word._

"_By keeping quiet," Mar had said gently, "you send a message. You're saying what she did was okay. You're helping to hide a wrong." She'd looked up at Frank, a steady, even stare that made Frank fidget. "And standing by and doing nothing — that's just as bad." Quieter, to Joe, "If you don't want to tell your dad, that's your decision. He won't hear it from me, either."_

"_But that means you're hiding it, too," Frank had said._

_Mar's gaze had been serious, as if Frank had been an adult, not eleven. "That is true. But you're both able to make your own decisions. I don't have the right to go behind your backs." Still quiet, still calm. "How brave do you want to be, Joe?"_

_Joe had finally spoken, struggled, shaking, "I want to tell Dad."_

_Mar had called Fenton and calmly invited him over. Dad had seen the bruise, had listened to his sons, and then had gathered both boys into a long hug, as both had broken down crying._

_The grounding had remained on Joe — some things, Dad would not condone, though he'd lifted it for Frank, when Joe had stood up for his brother and admitted he'd been the only one cursing. But that night, the brothers had overheard Dad laying down the law to Aunt Gertrude._

_The next day, with Dad watching, she'd apologized._

It'd seemed so simple back then — something's wrong, you tell Dad, you tell Mar, you tell _someone_, and the adults would fix it. Now…the older Frank got, the more complicated it all got, and it was becoming painfully clear that not only did the adults not have all the answers, they wouldn't act even when they _did._ Sometimes, they didn't even know the _question._

Right now, Circle Hills was rapidly topping his list for 'complicated'.

When he'd asked, Stacy stuck to her story about seeing the accident before it happened. On seeing Joe's expression, Frank kept his doubts to himself, for the moment. But when Joe asked about the house and why Stacy had taken them there, Stacy spun a tale about it being 'cursed', a two-hundred-year-old house, its original family murdered in a witch hunt and cursing the place with their dying breath. All owners since had supposedly died _horribly._

Evidently the locals believed the tale, and refused to go near the place. Usually. Normally.

"It's an Indian mound, too," Kris said, from the dark of the backseat. Frank gave her his best _don't-you-start_ look, but Kris met it with an uncaring shrug. "A hill like that's kind of obvious."

Things hadn't settled between her and Joe; Kris had gone mostly quiet, keeping her gaze on the window. After they dropped Stacy off, Frank was going to yank his younger brother aside and make him apologize to Kris. Calling their tagalong a coward — _she'd _been the one who fought her attacker off, not Joe.

"The whole hill's cursed." Stacy's child-like inflections were starting to grate on Frank's nerves; the girl spoke like she was six. "Settlers murdered a whole tribe. The chief cursed the town because of it. Everyone's seen the ghosts up there — they wander the mound, looking for vengeance."

"Wonderful," Joe muttered.

"You're talking about _chepis_," Kris said, to Stacy. "The tribes don't go for those anymore. They go for _real_ retribution."

"Taking scalps, you mean," Frank said, smiling. Spooky supernatural trivia at the slightest hint…yup, the drugs must've finally kicked in and nailed Kris's migraine. She sounded almost normal.

Kris snorted. "Not since they found out lawyers are worse."

"That's it, kill all the romance of it," Joe said.

"Mister, you _want_ an angry cannibalistic ghost coming after you, I'll be happy to set one on you —"

"How do _you_ know?" Stacy snapped at Kris. "You don't live here. You're not even —"

"My mom's Navajo," Kris said. "She's friends with the local Elders."

"You should see her scalp collection," Frank said. Mar had scared the daylights out of him and Joe one Halloween, until Frank had gotten the courage to actually touch one of the things…and found it was just rubber and fake hair.

Still…'mister', not 'big brother' or even 'Joe', and Kris's tone was barely civil. No, she hadn't settled at all. Frank was going to have lock them both in the trunk before the night was out, he knew it.

They were pulling into Stacy's driveway. A woman waited on the porch, her arms crossed, her face pinched and scowling. She reminded Frank of Tammy Bakker, a preacher on that annoying PTL show Aunt Gertrude loved so much: big, puffy blond hair hair-sprayed and back-combed into a motionless helmet, caked-on makeup, heavy mascara, a silver cross at her neck, a severe dark dress that went to mid-shin.

Frank put the van into park. Joe slid out and opened the passenger door to help Kris and Stacy out — or, rather, he tried; Kris jerked away from his touch, though she was decidedly unsteady on her feet.

"Who are you?" The woman's voice was strident, angry, suspicious. "What do you want, this time of night?" Then, shocked, _"Stacy!"_

Frank had thought Stacy had been scared in the sheriff's office. That was _nothing_ compared to her now quailing back behind Joe.

"_Mama —"_

"Get in the house, _now!_ Out after midnight with _boys_, how _dare_ you! Well? What do _you _want? Two boys with a couple girls, I know what you've been doing!" That, snapped at Frank and Joe.

Frank clamped his hand down on Joe's shoulder before his brother could open his mouth. But before Frank could say anything…

"Please, ma'am." Kris, behind them, as Stacy scurried into the house, and both Frank and Joe stared at her; Frank had never heard Kris sound like that, meek, submissive. "Me and my _brothers_ were just on our way home, and Stacy ran out in front of us —"

"There were men chasing her," Joe said angrily. "They were calling her a _witch!"_

Frank tightened his grip on Joe's shoulder, as Kris spoke right over top of him. "We helped her get away, ma'am, that's all. You can check with Sheriff Hollister, if you please."

Mrs. Blaine's gaze picked them over. "You're not local."

"Bayport," Frank said politely. Given Stacy's reaction, best to treat this woman like a bigger, stricter, super-Aunt Gertrude. "Our dad's in law enforcement, ma'am. We were delivering files for him down in Wareham, and the storm detoured us."

"Aren't you that girl who's been with those Walkers all week?" Mrs. Blaine said to Kris.

Silently, Kris nodded.

"We were picking her up on our way back home." Joe sounded polite enough; Frank let go his grip.

Abruptly, the woman's manner changed. She gestured them to follow. "Come in, then. You heading all that way tonight, you should have some coffee." Then she turned back. "Are you saved?"

"Yes'm," Kris said, before either Frank or Joe could say anything. "Baptized in water and the Holy Ghost with Bayport Pentecostal, last year."

"Praise Jesus," Joe added helpfully.

That was news to Frank. But Mrs. Blaine seemed to accept it, and turned back towards the house.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Kris murmured.

"You can stay outside," Frank said quietly, but Kris shook her head.

Frank had no idea what they were about to walk into. He was afraid to even open his mouth at this point, for fear of Mrs. Blaine using it somehow against Stacy. They followed Mrs. Blaine into a neat, ultra-tidy living room, covered in crochet and cross-stitched Bible verses. A large King James Bible sat on the coffee table; a print of Jesus and his heart stared down at them from the opposite wall.

Mrs. Blaine gestured them to sit, then bustled off to the kitchen. Both Frank and Joe sat gingerly on the afghan-covered couch. Kris, though, remained standing near the entryway to the hall, looking ill and uncomfortable.

"Are you okay?" Frank said to her.

She leaned back enough to see into the hallway, where Mrs. Blaine had gone. "No matter what," Kris said, barely loud enough to be heard, "stay polite. Don't argue with her." Her gaze settled on Joe. "Especially _you_. Just nod and agree. _Please._"

Frank nodded; he saw Joe's mouth tighten, though his brother stayed quiet. Bigger, stricter, super-Aunt Gertrude, check. But before Frank could ask how or why, an older man, greying hair and in a brown corduroy leisure suit, came into the living room. He stopped on seeing the three. "Who are you?"

Frank rose to his feet. "Frank Hardy, Mr. Blaine, sir. My brother, Joe, and our sister, Kris."

A brief rumble of laughter. "I'm definitely not Mr. Blaine, young man." But then his gaze moved to Kris.

Her arms crossed, Kris dropped her gaze, staring at the floor.

"They're just visiting, doctor," came Mrs. Blaine's voice, from down the hall. "They brought Stacy home." She came back into the living room, bearing a tray, a coffee pot and mugs. "This is Stacy's doctor. Dr. Mann."

Mrs. Blaine had accused Stacy for being out with Frank and Joe, and here _she_ was, at this time of night, with this man, alone in the house. Frank kept his expression carefully neutral.

"I've given Stacy her thorazine," Dr. Mann said to Mrs. Blaine, as Frank sat back down, "and locked her in her room for the night. I'll talk to her later."

"_Thorazine?"_ Joe burst out. _"Why?"_

That got suspicious stares from both Dr. Mann and Mrs. Blaine. "For someone who's accepted the blood of Jesus," Mrs. Blaine said, "your hair is awfully long, young man."

It was meant to shut them up, Frank was certain. He had no idea how to respond; Aunt Gertrude had been on both his and Joe's cases lately to cut their hair, but that had nothing to do with _religion._ But…long? Joe's shaggy mop barely brushed his shoulders.

"They've taken the nazirite vows, ma'am." Kris was edging away from Dr. Mann. "Brother Palmer allows it, to mark them as truly of the sons of Levi."

Something about that was familiar from Sunday school when he was a kid, something to do with the story of Samson. But where was _Kris_ getting it from? She always flat-out refused to go to church, save for one disastrous visit to First United, and Mar never made her; Aunt Gertrude was always clucking about it. Frank filed it away in the back of his head for later.

"God opposes the proud, young lady," Mrs. Blaine said sharply.

"Yes, ma'am, sorry, ma'am." Kris dropped her gaze back to the floor.

"An intelligent young lady." Dr. Mann smiled and laid a hand on Kris's shoulder. "I'd say she has every reason to be proud of her brothers."

Kris pulled away. "Pardon me, sir, but I've taken purity vows, as well, please. The only men I can allow to touch me are my brothers and father, sir, if you please." Her voice was tight, tense.

Frank was going to run out of room in his brain, at this rate. Kris tended to shy from physical contact anyway, but something was different, this time. Something was very wrong.

The doctor was watching Kris again, smiling.

It had turned scary, even after having been chased by a lynch mob, and Frank wasn't sure why. Frank could see Joe's hands had clenched around the coffee mug. To cover his own reaction, Frank took a sip, barely avoided making a face. Instant coffee, and weak, at that.

"I'm sorry," Joe said slowly, "but Stacy seems so nice. I thought thorazine was just for psychotic people."

"The young lady has intelligent brothers, as well," Dr. Mann said. "You're correct. Stacy is schizophrenic."

Schizophrenic. Great. His younger brother was getting involved with a crazy person. This was now beyond anything they could help with, but convincing Joe of that was going to be tough. Frank bit back a sigh.

"She hears voices," Mrs. Blaine said. "Voices that tell her what no one has a right to know. The voice of the _devil._ Dr. Mann is known for working wonders with possessed and unruly children." Her gaze sharpened. "What did she tell you?"

"_Possessed?"_ Joe said, incredulous. "You can't be seri—"

Frank jumped in before Joe could dig them in any deeper. "Stacy told us she saw an accident and tried to warn someone about it. It sounded like God's speaking through her, like a prophet."

Behind Mrs. Blaine and Dr. Mann, Kris shook her head violently.

"Your congregation _allows_ that?" Mrs. Blaine said.

"Only in the presence of Christ, ma'am," Kris said quietly. "In the gathering of believers, under the power of his Spirit. I'm sorry, ma'am, we just assumed that was what Stacy meant."

"Well, you're young." Dr. Mann smiled at her again. "You're still innocent."

But the suspicion on Mrs. Blaine's face didn't ease. "Stacy is not a prophet and she doesn't speak under the power of the Holy Ghost. Her speaking is an _abomination."_

"I've been treating Stacy since she was about eight." Dr. Mann sighed. "Sadly, she's not responding well to treatment, lately."

Silence.

"Frank," Kris's voice shook, "may I have the keys, please? I really need to lie down."

Frank got up, handed her the keys, far too aware of Mrs. Blaine and Dr. Mann watching. It had sounded like a cue for them to get out, but…

…there was something else going on. Something they weren't going to like, something they needed to know. He was certain of it. Mrs. Blaine wasn't talking like a mother concerned about her daughter, at least, not concerned in a normal way.

"I would be happy to escort our sister in Christ to your car," Dr. Mann said. "If she's feeling sick…"

"No need, sir." Kris lifted her head suddenly, stared directly into Dr. Mann's face. "God protects me. As He will protect Stacy."

"Yeah, those men found _that_ out," Joe said.

"What?" Mrs. Blaine said sharply. "What do you mean?"

Everyone was looking at Joe now. "Stacy led us to some old house," Joe said. "Those men were going to burn it down, with us in it. God helped us get out of there, but when we were running to the van, one of the men tried to grab my sister." There wasn't a trace of a smile on Joe's face, flat, even,_ adult. _ "That was when God struck the house. Lightning. It set the trees on fire." Now Joe grinned, every inch an enthusiastic, God-fearing teen. "It was _awesome."_

The expression on Mrs. Blaine's face — she wouldn't dare call them liars, not unless she was going to claim that God didn't do stuff like that. Behind her and Mann, Kris flashed Joe an all-too-rare smile, and somehow Frank managed to keep his own face straight. Perfect. Totally _perfect. _

But Frank was not about to let his brother out-do him that easily. "Thou shalt not oppress a stranger," Frank said, serious, measured, deliberate. Thank God for science-fiction; those Zenna Henderson stories were now _priceless_. "Thou shalt not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them, I will hear their cry and My wrath will wax hot." He looked at Mrs. Blaine. "Book of Exodus."

"Yes, of course," Mrs. Blaine said, recovering.

Now Frank gave Kris a very big-brotherly hug, and to his surprise, she let him. "Go lie down, _sis," _he said; she was obviously fighting to keep a straight face — two smiles in less than five minutes from her. That had to be a new record. "We'll be out as soon as we finish this_ excellent_ coffee."

"Yeah," Joe said, deadpan, as Kris left. "Dad never lets us have it this strong. Thank you, ma'am."

His brother had just earned himself a pizza. Two of them, with all the toppings…_after_ he'd apologized to Kris. Frank sat back down, deliberately poured himself another cup.

"Old house?" Dr. Mann said, scowling.

"She called it Denham House," Frank said. "Up on that hill just outside town."

"Stacy's always had an strange fascination with the occult," Mrs. Blaine said. "Especially that heathen hill."

"Possessed Hill, everyone calls it," Dr. Mann said. "It's supposedly an Indian burial mound."

"Heathens," Mrs. Blaine said firmly. "Ungodly and un-Christian. And that house is just as bad. Stacy's been using it to hide since she was small. The sheriff knows to bring her home if he catches her there. She's not allowed up there, and she knows it."

"It's just an old house," Frank said slowly. "It didn't look that bad."

"It has an evil reputation," Dr. Mann said, "because of where it's built. And what it's being used for, by those out-of-towners."

"The devil's work. Pagan customs." Mrs. Blaine sighed. "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. I pray a stronger rod of discipline will drive it from Stacy's heart."

It sounded like another Bible quote. Frank exchanged an uneasy look with Joe; no matter the source, that hadn't sounded good at all. Surely Mrs. Blaine didn't mean it like that.

"How long has Stacy been seeing things?" Joe said. "Predicting the future, I mean?"

"You sound as if you approve," Mrs. Blaine said sharply.

Joe stood his ground. "God sent the lightning to protect us. If He didn't like us helping Stacy, He wouldn't have."

"That is true," Dr. Mann said, smiling again. "Maybe He intends more for you. The storm has closed the main routes, after all. Perhaps if you stay in Circle Hills for the night, your sister could help me with Stacy. Provide a godly influence, as it were."

Frank shifted uneasily. Maybe it was just seeing how Kris had reacted to the doctor, but Frank didn't like the sound of that. He didn't like it at _all._

"Just for the past couple years," Mrs. Blaine said finally, to Joe's question. "She's always been strange. Telling wicked lies. Undisciplined. Wild. She claims that _house_ will protect her."

"Those men weren't treating it like a lie," Joe said.

"It's what she claims she's seeing," Mrs. Blaine said. "She'll tell someone something bad will happen, and it does. Our neighbors — our good, God-fearing neighbors — are rightly angry. They know Satan's work when they see it."

"If Stacy's only been trying to warn them," Joe said, "maybe they _don't._ It sounds like God's gifted her —"

"The Lord says, 'Surely as I have planned, so it will be'," Mrs Blaine cut him off sharply. "Nothing can circumvent God's will, young man, nazirite or not." Abruptly, she stood up. "You have a long way to drive tonight. It's best that you were on the road now.


	9. The girl in the tattered shawl

_Kris didn't know how old she'd been. Curled up in the back of the old station wagon, fighting her sobs down, she'd slowly inched her way towards the door, curling her legs under her. Her mother and father argued in the front seat — thumping the Bible, as usual, something about Abraham and Isaac and Mount Moriah — and all Kris knew was that their argument would mean worse for her once they stopped, once they got wherever they were taking her. The raw, blistered mark on her chest was proof of that; the aching throb in her arm, the bruises spread over her back and arms were nothing, compared to that. _

_A very light hand had touched her head, a hand she couldn't see but whose presence she'd always felt. Her imaginary friend, Noah. Sometimes she could see him, faint and wispy, a young man in a worn, ragged shirt and cloth pants._

_Be brave, his touch said. Be ready. _

_No, the parents hadn't been happy about _him_, either. They'd caught her talking to Noah that morning. Satan, they'd called him. Possessed, they'd called _her._ They couldn't see him, didn't believe her…and then the beating had started._

_Then, as she'd lain there, too much in pain to even sob, her skin blistered and raw, her father had done the rest._

_For some unknown reason, they'd dragged her out, threw her in the back of the junky station wagon, and started driving. Kris didn't know where to, didn't care. _

_She was finally upright, leaning against the car door. Please, please, don't let them notice. Don't let them see. Though she had no idea what she was praying to. She didn't believe in Jesus anymore. _

_Cursing, her father slammed on the brakes. An accident, police cars, fire trucks._

_Now! Noah's touch screamed it, and somehow, she'd shoved the car door open, all but fell out, and started running. She could hear her mother and father screaming behind her; she didn't care. _

_Turn, Noah insisted. Turn again. She'd listened, she'd run until her legs were rubbery and staggering, until she stumbled into an alley behind a run-down block of grocery stores and pawnshops. She'd collapsed behind a dumpster, curled up and trembling, unable to run anymore, waiting for them to find her. Noah was telling her how brave she was, to hold on, just a little bit more…_

_A young Hispanic woman in a neon-yellow t-shirt had come out from a nearby metal door, puke-green and tagged with gang-graffiti. She'd seen Kris there, had helped her to stagger inside to a stock room filled with boxes and crates of produce and groceries and smelling of orange and cilantro, green cactus and peaches. Kris didn't care. Anything had to be better, anything. But the woman made a phone call, speaking rapidly in another language. Trembling, scared, Kris had wanted so badly to start running again, didn't have the strength. The woman had to be calling the cops, she had to be calling the parents, they were going to take her back, they were going to…_

_No, Noah's touch said, no, calm, calm._

_The woman hung up, then wrapped a warm, colorful, handwoven blanket around Kris's shoulders and gave her a bottle of cold soda — sweetly spiced, tamarind. "You're safe," the woman said, strongly accented. "I've called help. No one will hurt you here. You're safe."_

_Kris didn't know how long she'd lain there, shivering, wrapped in the blanket. The pain started to overwhelm her, until finally another woman had come into the stock room, an older, weathered Native American woman with grey-streaked black hair, shock and horror open on her face. _

"_Come on, little one," Mar Mountainhawk had said gently, helping Kris to her feet, "we're getting you to a hospital."_

Kris had barely stopped herself from _running_ from the Blaine house. No. She had to keep her pace normal, slow, everyday, if staggering a bit from the medications. She wanted to throw up; she was about to dig her Bowie knife back out and go hunting that doctor. Despite the meds, despite her heavy exhaustion from overusing Gift, some things came through far too clearly, far too horrifying, far too sickening.

She didn't go into the van immediately. She skirted around it, collapsed to sit on the rear bumper — out of sight of the house — and breathed in huge gulps of clean night air. Clean, chilly, damp, smelling of nothing worse than rain and wet grass, damp pavement and fall leaves, woodsmoke and after-storm. She couldn't control her shaking. Between whatever had been in that house, the mob, Stacy, and now this, Kris was rapidly hitting the end of her mental rope. She wanted to just go home and curl up in the darkness of her closet, wrapped in a blanket and nothing but pillows around her, the door blocked shut so nothing and no one would get in.

She took another deep breath. No. She was out of that. She was no longer a child. She was a Blade in training. She could deal. She could handle it.

Yeah. Right.

Noise startled her, from the far side of the van. Kris peered around the corner.

Stacy knelt near the front passenger-side tire.

For a moment, Kris only watched her. How had Stacy gotten out? She'd been locked in — but then Kris saw the moss stains on Stacy's clothes. Locked in or not, there was probably a window, and Kris could see the top of a tree just beyond the Blaines' roof, in their backyard. Okay. Points for figuring that out. The girl had enough sense to change clothes, too; no longer in that _oh-shoot-me-now_ white dress, she was in patched jeans and a dark, hooded jacket.

Finally Kris pushed herself to her feet. "You know," she said, and Stacy jumped back with a squeak, "Frank and Joe have this problem. They always want to help. And they always try to. They're good like that. But you sabotaging their van is going to put you solidly in the _drive away and forget her _category."

"You're one of _them_," Stacy spat. "I heard you. You're all _lying._ You're all on _their_ side."

"I used to be one of them," Kris said. "But now I'm one of _me." _

Stacy backed away, radiating anger, suspicion, betrayal — everyone against her, no one believing her, no help, no way out,_ trapped._ Kris only looked at her, unexpected sympathy stirring in her gut — though forgiveness was another matter. No matter what, a little eight-year-old was now in the hospital because of Stacy.

…_mobs don't have proof…_

What would Joe have said if he'd caught Stacy out here — no, Kris knew the answer to that already. He'd yell at the girl, but then he'd still try to help. Both Frank and Joe would, just as they had Kris.

_Be careful of judging others, _Mar had said, often enough._ You might find yourself at the the other end._

Guilty, all counts; Kris sighed. But she was going to have to get the girl's attention, major. But coming on the heels of everything else tonight, it was going to cost heavy.

Kris glanced towards the tire, caught a glint of metal. A stupid, childish trick, though not innocent: a nut and bolt, tilted up into the tread. It would blow the tire after driving on it a bit, and in the storm, with the water-slick roads, a blown tire could be deadly.

Her 'big brothers' wanted to help, and… Anger surged, and with a mental twist, Kris lifted the bolt to her hand.

Stacy gasped, but before she could back up another step, Kris was talking.

"Well? Are you going to call me 'possessed' too?" Kris struggled to keep anger out of her voice. She remembered far too well what she'd been like, after Mar had taken her in: that somehow, it'd all been her fault, down deep. That no one was to be trusted, that sooner or later, the beatings would start, the _other_ would start. "Unlike _you,_ I'm the real thing."

Stacy had frozen, silent, staring.

Kris wanted to hurl the bolt at her. Instead, her fist clenched around it. "So what in the _hell_ did Grant do, that you hurt his little girl?"

"I didn't!"

"You did," Kris snapped. "That's why you were scared of Sheriff Hollister. You sliced the brake lines open —" Her words choked off, as the thoughts and images came through suddenly, clear and sickening…Mann, watching little Jenny…

"He said he'd tell," Stacy whispered. "He said he'd tell Mama and she'd lock me away at Danvers."

'He' — not Grant. _Mann. _ "Don't tell me you believe _anything_ that bastard says." The edge of another migraine started to press in, thankfully blocking out everything but pain. Kris crossed her arms, leaned casually against the van to hide her shivering. "I know what he's doing to you. That's why I'm out here. Another minute in there, and they'd've had to report a murder."

Still silence. Stacy only stared at the bolt in Kris's hand.

Kris was getting out of her depth; she had no idea what to do next. Circle Hills was in the middle of nowhere, a small town where everyone knew everyone else and things like abuse and molestation were _'not our problem'_, shoved under the rug, ignored.

"I used to have a place I could hide," Kris said. "Sometimes they'd take it out on each other instead of me, if I stayed out of sight."

"Mama loves him," Stacy said, as if to herself. "She won't fight with him. She won't believe me."

Nausea rolled in Kris's gut at her own memory, increasing with the migraine. Always _she'd _been the one lying, the one leading him on, the one at fault, no matter she'd only been a child. "But you were going to hurt two guys who _are_ willing to believe you."

Stacy didn't need to say anything. Her hostile glare was answer enough. Belief was one thing; trust was something else.

Memory was cutting too close, hurting too much. "Look, is there anyplace you can go? Anyone who'll let you crash for the night?" The moment Kris said that, it clicked — the _house_. That was why Stacy had led them there.

"Allen said he'd take me away." That, so low that Kris barely heard it.

The name wasn't familiar, but then, Kris had only been there a week. "Allen?"

Stacy shook her head, backed up, then turned and bolted away, towards the back of the house.

Kris breathed out, frustrated. Too much, too soon, and she wasn't in any shape to go after Stacy right now. The threatened migraine was squeezing right behind her eyeballs. Kris slid the van's passenger door open, crawled in, slammed it shut behind her, then dug in her duffel bag for the nasal spray. She didn't bother stretching out on the backseat, only stayed curled up on the floor in the near-total darkness behind the driver's side, head on her knees, and let the tears come, just a little.

Hopefully she could guilt-trip Frank and Joe into going back to the Walkers' for the night...


	10. The Young Intern Made A Discovery

_The new kid next door had been interesting, but nothing special. Joe had been ten; he'd spotted her curled up in the lower branch of the sugar maple in the backyard next door. Movers had been out front of that house, hauling boxes in and using lots of fascinating new words, and Joe had been curious about the new neighbors, excited over something new finally happening on their street. No one had been in that house for months, not since Crazy Jones had really gone off his rocker and started firing bird shot at the Hardys' garbage cans. That had ended in a late-night police call and Chief Collig himself coming out to take the old man away…and a week later, there'd been serious-faced adults packing up Crazy Jones's possessions and a 'For Sale' sign out front of his house._

_Joe had scrambled over the chain-link fence, Frank right behind him, and both went to stare up into the tree. The new girl was little, with short-cropped blonde hair; she was curled up around her knees and, despite the warm day, wearing a long-sleeved gray shirt and jeans that were slightly too big for her. She hadn't said anything, only stared at them. _

"_Hey," Frank had said, "you're a _girl!"

_Joe had looked at his brother in exasperation. "Of course she's a _girl._"_

"_She's in a tree," Frank said, perfectly serious. "Maybe she's really a squirrel."_

_Still silent, the new girl had stood, perfectly balanced on the branch, hooked an arm around the next branch up and swung herself onto it, re-curled herself into the crook of the new branch, now not looking at them. _

_Joe and Frank had exchanged grins — it had looked like a challenge, to Joe — and Joe grabbed the low branch, about to climb after her. A girl who could climb trees like that? _

"_Hi there," said a new voice, from the house, and the brothers had turned — an older woman, brown-skinned, black hair streaked with gray, wiry, in embroidered blue jeans and a red tank-top. She didn't look like anyone Joe had ever seen before, but he'd liked her weathered, dried-apple face immediately. Something about her eyes, warm and friendly. "You're the boys from next door. Frank and Joe."_

_There'd been a startled silence. "How'd you know that?" Joe had blurted out. _

_She'd grinned. "Magic."_

"_Nuh-uh." Even at eleven, Frank had insisted on everything making sense. "Dad told you, I bet."_

_The woman had laughed, eased to sit on the back porch steps. She had a great laugh, deep from the belly, open and free. "Oh, this is going to be fun, I can see that already."_

"_You look weird," Joe had said._

_Frank elbowed him hard. "Joe! Sorry, ma'am," that, politely, to the woman, "he didn't mean it like that."_

"_She's an Indian," said the new girl, from above them. _

_Joe had stared hard at the woman. She didn't look at all like Tonto or even Tiger Lily. No headdress, no war paint, and she sounded…well…normal. "But you're not wearing any feathers."_

"_You're not acting like an Indian," Frank had said._

_The woman raised an eyebrow. "What, you want me to scalp you?"_

_Both boys had shaken their heads fast. _

"_Wise heads on such young shoulders." The woman's gravelly voice was calm, casual. "I'm Maria Mountainhawk. You can call me Mar, for short. And yes, I'm really an Indian. Navajo. Diné, if you want the real word for it. The little squirrel up there's my daughter, Kris."_

_Joe looked back up towards the new girl; she'd been watching, but looked away quickly. "But she doesn't look like an Indian."_

"_She's adopted," Mar said calmly._

"_She can't be," Frank said. "Indians don't adopt. They kidnap kids and turn them into Indians —" Then he'd shut up._

_Mar only laughed again. "Well. Yes. That's about what I did."_

_That bit of news had gotten both brothers staring again. "Are you going to kidnap us, too?" Joe had said, wide-eyed, hopeful. _

"_Please do," said a dry voice; their dad stood at the corner of the house. "Maybe then I can keep some food in the fridge, for a change. Hi there." That, to Mar. "I see my boys are pestering you already. I'm Fenton Hardy."_

_Sudden movement up in the tree; Joe glanced up. Kris had scrambled to the next highest branch. _

"_Mar Mountainhawk," Mar said, smiling. "They're no bother. Boys are supposed to pester." Another grin at Frank and Joe. "Especially if they're going to be detectives when they grow up."_

_Dad had laughed. "Yeah, that's their current plan. My sister sent me over here to see if you wanted to come over for coffee and some lunch."_

_Joe had kept staring, wide-eyed. Dad _hadn't_ known Mar, then. But somehow, Mar had still known his and Frank's names and that they were going to be detectives, like their dad. _

"_She really kidnapped you?" Frank had said, to Kris up in the tree. But Kris had been staring towards their dad, her eyes wide and fearful._

"_Boys," Mar had gently shooed them away from the tree, "leave her alone right now." She looked up. "Do you want to come down for lunch?"_

_Joe had looked back. Kris had shaken her head, clinging to the tree. He couldn't understand why she looked so scared. It was just Dad. _

"_Okay," Mar said. "There's peanut butter in the fridge, when you're ready."_

_Dad had been watching the girl in the tree, then that look had moved to Mar, and even though Joe had only been ten, he _knew_ that look. Something was seriously wrong, and Dad had figured that out, Dad was going to get involved…another mystery, another case!_

_However, back in the Hardys' kitchen, Aunt Gertrude had shooed Frank and Joe out onto the back porch with their sandwiches and sodas, while the adults had settled around the kitchen table for a low-voiced talk. That had been too much to take; there was some mystery about the new girl, Joe was certain. Kidnapped by Indians…! No wonder she'd been so scared._

"_Joe," rolling his eyes, Frank had broken in on Joe's excited what-if's, "if she'd really kidnapped her, she wouldn't have told us like that."_

"_She might have," Joe countered; Mar had seemed nice, but everyone knew what Indians were really like. "Maybe she let it slip by accident." He went on with the one thing he knew would get his brother to help him. "She was scared, Frank. She was really scared."_

_There'd been only one way to find out. Eavesdropping on the adults was out. Fenton knew his sons too well and had taken the chair that let him keep an eye on the front door from the kitchen. No way to sneak up on the adults, then. _

_The brothers had slipped off the back porch — going over the fence again was also out, too obvious and way too visible from the back patio doors. They'd gone around the side of their house, then, since the front of the house next door had been blocked by the burly moving men who eyed the brothers suspiciously, Frank and Joe had gone around the far side to the back yard._

_The glass patio doors had been open, and Kris had been standing in the center of the kitchen near a stack of boxes, her back to the patio door, a peanut butter sandwich in one hand, a glass of grape Kool-aid in the other. She'd been watching the moving men, her stance jumpy, as if ready to bolt. When Joe had slid the screen door back, she_ had_ jumped, stared at the brothers with wide eyes, clutching the sandwich and the glass so hard that Kool-aid splashed from her shaking._

_She only came up to maybe Frank's shoulder; she had to be younger than them, then. Before she could say anything, Joe was talking, to reassure her. "It's okay. We want to help. Our dad's a cop."_

"_A police detective," Frank said proudly. _

"_That woman said she kidnapped you! We can help you get back to your real mom and dad —"_

_Whatever Joe had expected, it wasn't what happened. Kris had _screamed,_ hurled both sandwich and glass at them, soaking both Frank and Joe in purple water as they'd instinctively ducked, then she'd bolted further into the house, the stacked boxes crashing to the ground behind her. Footsteps ran up the stairs, a door slammed — Joe took off after her, Frank right behind him._

_Burly, muscled arms grabbed them both, yanked them to a stop, hauled them back around. "What're you boys doing, bullying that little girl?"_

_Joe had glared up into the faces of the moving men, squirmed, fought to break free, only for the man to shake him, hard._

"_It's those Hardy brats," another of the men said. "I'll get their dad."_

_At the time, Joe hadn't known what was worse, the man's bruising grip on his arm or Dad coming in a few minutes later, Mar right behind him. Both Mar and Dad had listened to the moving men's story of the brothers "bullying that wee mite and chasing her upstairs"; the man holding Joe had shaken Joe silent when he'd tried to tell his side to Dad. They hadn't been bullying, they hadn't, they'd just been trying to help!_

_Mar had gone upstairs, and there'd been muffled talk, then a door had opened and sobbing had broken out. Finally Mar had come back down, had stopped at the bottom of the stairs, stood quiet and solemn with her arms crossed, looking at Frank and Joe, both still dripping sticky grape Kool-aid. _

"_I'll talk to them," Dad said, taking both boys' arms and pushing them out the door and back to the house. _

_No. _That _had been worse. Much worse. _

_Dad hadn't yelled, had only talked in the same calm, even tones that he'd used when explaining Mom's sickness, but this time explaining something that neither brother had believed…_

_No. No one would do that. That'd been Frank's stubborn that-doesn't-make-sense argument, and Joe had totally agreed with his brother. No one could possibly want to do such things, not to a kid, not to a little girl like that. _

_Determined to prove Dad wrong, Frank had dragged Joe with him to the library — the suspicious librarian calling Dad first to get permission before allowing the boys into the adult stacks. _

_Both brothers had ended up with nightmares for a solid week. _

Joe and Frank had left the Blaine house — no, they were _escorted_ out, Mrs. Blaine's posture and attitude made that perfectly clear — both silent. But inside, Joe was seething.

_Schizophrenic. Abomination. Possessed._ Joe hadn't been able to believe what he was hearing. He'd barely been able to control his mouth, not wanting to get Stacy in more trouble, though he hadn't been able to resist baiting Mrs. Blaine. He knew both Frank and Kris had caught on, especially from the smile Kris had given him behind the adults' backs.

Somehow Joe held his silence all the way out to the van, even as he yanked the door open, far too hard. The rain had stopped, for the moment, at least, though the wind had that damp smell that meant more on the way. He dropped into the passenger seat, slammed the van door shut —

In the dark behind the driver's seat, Kris startled hard, caught herself, blinking at Joe as if not seeing him.

"That settles that." Frank sighed it out as he eased into the driver's seat; Kris passed him back the keys. "They'll have the roads cleared in the morning. I should have enough cash to cover another motel room."

"The Walkers'll put us up." Rubbing her temples, Kris leaned against the back of the driver's seat. "And they'll let us call home without charging an arm and leg. The diner's closed by now, and I _really_ need to eat."

Joe could see Frank wavering. "I don't want to impose —"

"I don't want to explain to Mar why we didn't," Kris said.

Not to mention his and Frank's dad. Joe glanced towards her. If he didn't know better, he'd swear she was making excuses for them to stay. "I said I'm not leaving," Joe said, to Frank. "I meant it."

"Joe," Frank sighed that out, too. "We told the sheriff. Stacy's schizophrenic, you heard the doctor. I don't like it either, but there's nothing more we can do."

"They also said she was possessed," Joe said, with heat. "You believe that, too?"

Frank settled back into the seat. "No." Quiet, frustrated. He started the van up, pulled out of the Blaines' driveway. "But they wouldn't have her on thorazine if she wasn't schizophrenic."

"Mann's not a psychiatrist," Kris said. "He's not qualified to diagnose mental stuff. Circle Hills doesn't have anyone like that."

Now Joe stared. That really sounded as if she was arguing his side, but from the way Kris'd talked before, she sided with the angry mob. But…Mann wasn't a psychiatrist? Something about that bit of information sat uneasily.

Frank shifted. "But he's a doctor —"

"He's a creep," Joe said. The way Mann had been looking at Kris — Joe hadn't liked it at all; the doctor's offer to escort Kris out to the van had set all Joe's alarms off. No. Something was very wrong.

"Yeah," Frank said, another sigh. "No argument there."

Silence in the back; Joe glanced towards Kris again. She was watching him, but looked away quickly when she saw Joe looking back.

"I just don't see what we can do about it." Frank's gaze was on the road ahead. "We can't adopt every emotional stray that we run across." He sounded tired, far too adult.

"The technical term," their emotional stray in the back said, "is _'run over'_. Which Joe almost did."

Frank hadn't sounded all that firm, either. "I guess you're right," Joe said, sighing dramatically. "The sheriff told us to butt out. Maybe we should." It wasn't like the cops ever listened to them, anyway. At least, not at first.

"Nice try," Frank said, with a bare grin.

"Just trying your side out to see how I liked it," Joe said. "I didn't. She's in trouble. I'm helping her. End statement."

"More like she's pretty," Frank said dryly. "And she kissed you. That's the real reason." He slanted a sly glance at Joe. "Though that kiss could be an argument towards the crazy part."

"Thanks a lot," Joe said.

Frank insisted on stopping by the motel anyway, to let Phil and Chet know what was up; Joe went to the room with him and let the inevitable ribbing wash over without comment. When they came back down, Kris was in the lobby over by the rack of tourist-traps, reading a glossy hideous-orange and black pamphlet with a cartoony picture of a house on the front.

"Kris," Frank said tiredly, "c'mon. We don't have time for sight-seeing."

She stuffed the pamphlet into her back pocket. "Just checking something." Bland, innocent. "You'd be surprised what you can learn if you pay attention, for a change."

Word for word, one of Dad's sayings; it sounded like a dig at them, somehow. Joe eyed her, but Kris returned the gaze with no expression.

"You're playing mysterious again," Joe said, as they followed after Frank.

"I'm a girl," Kris said. "I'm supposed to be."

The Walkers were a pleasant surprise. Tom Walker was a tall red-head in his late thirties, with a quick smile and soft, intelligent eyes, his wife, Sharon, dark-haired and tired-looking, obviously pregnant, with a small silver cross at her neck — that gave Joe a bad, suspicious moment. But the Walkers had taken one look at the trio on their doorstep, ushered all three inside and ensconced them at the kitchen table with sandwiches and hot chocolate. Tom had called Mar himself to let her know of the delay, while Sharon brought out towels and made the three dry off — as well as a pair of sleeping bags and blankets for the couch, before the brothers or Kris had even asked.

"You're staying here," Sharon said firmly. "There's flooding on 28, and too many trees down — a tornado touched down just north of here. County patrol closed the roads."

"I'd offer the spare bedroom," Tom said, grinning at his wife, "but _someone_ has me wallpapering it with Winnie the Pooh at the moment. 'Stinks to high heaven' is an understatement."

Relaxed, comfortable, casual. Joe hadn't planned to say anything about what had happened; the Walkers were practically strangers. They wouldn't be interested. But to Joe's further surprise, Kris started telling Tom the whole story, and both Joe and Frank ended up filling in their gaps. Joe couldn't keep the anger out of his words, anger over the mob, the sheriff, Mrs. Blaine.

Tom was silent, listening, until their words wound down. "The little girl that was hurt," Tom said finally, quietly, "is our next door neighbor. Jenny. Grant Stevens' daughter. She's at Wareham General right now, in ICU." His gaze flickered to Kris.

"So that gives them the right to hunt Stacy?" Joe said. "To chase her down with _guns? _To call her a _witch?" _These people were adults. They knew it was wrong. They knew it was a bad situation. Why didn't they step up and do something?

"He's not saying that, Joe," Frank said.

Tom only looked at Joe, a long, serious gaze. It was too much like the look Dad would give him, whenever Joe started questioning why the cops just couldn't _get_ the bad guy…

Then Tom raised an eyebrow at Kris, who shook her head, and Tom sighed. "Turn it around, Joe. Let's say someone told you that there was going to be an accident, that your van's brakes would fail…and they did. And Frank there wound up in the hospital because of it. What would _you_ be thinking?"

Direct challenge. Joe shifted uncomfortably. The obvious implication — Stacy had done it, somehow — put Joe right in with that angry mob of idiots that'd hunted Stacy with guns and tried to burn that house down. But the other way landed him in with Mrs. Blaine and that psychic 'abomination' nonsense…

"But if Stacy is schizophrenic," Frank said, "then she might not be aware of her actions. Or it was just a lucky guess. She saw something wrong with the car and tried to warn Grant about it."

Thank God for an _everything-has-to-make-sense_ older brother…

"She's had a lot of lucky guesses, then," Tom said.

But Frank was never put off that easily. "Or she made her prediction _after_ the fact. Said something vague and then made it apply to whatever happened, and people are getting caught up in it. It's like cold-reading — what?" That to Kris, who'd sighed.

"Nothing." Kris stared at her cup of hot chocolate.

"Been reading James Randi, I see," Tom said casually.

Frank looked suspicious. "Something wrong with that?"

"Not at all," Tom said. "Randi knows all the tricks. Hang on hard to that skepticism, boyo. It'll do a world of good." To Kris, "Don't ever discount this one. In some ways, he's going to see a lot clearer than you will."

That was an odd — no, _weird_ — thing for Tom to say about someone he'd just met. Tom didn't sound anything like someone who was just a business colleague. Even stranger, Kris wasn't treating him like one; she acted more like Tom was an advisor than one of her mother's business associates.

"Stacy's being abused, Tom," Kris said quietly. "Mann's molesting her."

Dead silence. Joe raised his head. Dear God…

"C'mon, tag." Frank sounded uncomfortable. "I didn't like him either, but you can't just accuse like that."

Kris looked back down at her mug. "Stacy told me. She came outside."

"But they locked her in," Frank said.

She looked annoyed. "There's a big tree right out back the house. It's not that hard, even for a _girl."_

Joe's mouth quirked. He and Frank had both managed the same thing when they were kids, and they didn't have a tree right outside…and to their surprise, so had Kris when they'd dared her, and the Mountainhawk home didn't even have an ivy trellis.

"She told you?" Tom said evenly.

Kris opened her mouth, shut it. Then, "Almost. She said just enough. It wasn't hard to figure out."

"Speak you every man the truth to his neighbor," Sharon said softly, "Execute the judgement of truth and peace in your gates."

"Kris doesn't lie," Joe snapped. "Not about something like that."

"That's not what that quote means," Sharon said, with a direct look at Kris. "There is a world of difference between 'she said it' and 'I figured it out'. There is something called 'proof' that the law needs, before it can act." She rose to her feet, gave her husband a hug. "I'm off to bed. Don't keep them up too late, dear."

_Mobs don't think, mobs don't have proof._ Hearing his own words turned back on him like that — "But now you know it's going on," Joe said angrily. "If Stacy told Kris about it…"

Tom sighed. "But if Stacy won't report it…"

"Right," Joe said. "I heard that sheriff. Reporting anything to him is a waste of time. He just about said he agrees with the mob."

"From what Mrs. Blaine said," Frank said, "Stacy has a reputation for being weird, and they're saying she's schizophrenic. It'd be her word versus that doctor's."

"Whose side are you on?" Joe demanded.

Frank's gaze was calm. "Yours. My point is that Stacy might have tried to report it before, and no one's believed her."

"No one believed me, either," Kris said quietly. "After a while, you stop trying." She looked down. "Especially when it just brings more trouble."

"Mar believed you," Tom said.

"She didn't have a choice."

"There's always a choice," Tom said firmly. "Be aware of yours."

That _really_ didn't sound like a simple "business associate". Who was this guy?

"I'm not putting you off," Tom went on. "But you need to look at the whole situation —"

"Such a wonderful grown-up phrase," Joe said bitterly. "It really means you don't want to get involved."

"_Joe,"_ Frank said.

Tom didn't lose the calm tone. "And what _you_ really mean is _'why can't you handle it so I don't have to?'._"

It was a hard, unexpected verbal slap. Joe stared, caught speechless.

"Well?" Tom pressed. "You've been raging pretty good on _why can't someone do something_ — why do you expect everyone else to handle the responsibility you've claimed?" He leaned on the table, fixed Joe with a _look._ "Brother, get the beam out of your own eye before you go after the mote in mine."

Everyone was looking at Joe now. "But — but I'm just —"

"So?" Tom said. "Your brother there is 'just', and he figured out how to distract the mob so you could escape. Kris there is 'just', and she got into that house to warn you despite that mob. What are _you_ going to do, besides bitch about the rest of us?"

Joe shoved to his feet. "_But I don't know what to do!"_

Silence settled.

"Welcome to adulthood." Tom settled into a casual lean against the counter. "That was the first honest thing you've said tonight. So…what do you want to happen?"

That was obvious, wasn't it? Joe opened his mouth, but then looked at Frank and Kris. Kris was still staring at her mug; Frank watched Tom with his usual _serious-older-brother_ expression. "Well…to make sure Stacy's safe…"

"Uh-huh." It was a knowing drawl of sound. "Try again, boyo. You talked to Hollister. He said he'd talk to Grant and the others. The rest is up to Stacy, not you."

"_What?" _

Tom held up a hand. "Tonight started because she 'saw' an accident and told Grant about it. So…if you're accepting that Stacy is able to do such things…then she needs to learn to keep her mouth shut." Another _look. _"I'm _not_ saying that Grant had any right to do what he did. But there is such a thing as being careful."

Joe shifted from foot to foot. If he accepted…but Kris had been doing similar things, and Joe and Frank had _not_ been accepting it, had been teasing her about her 'magic tricks' for years…

"And if Stacy's not able to do such things?" Frank said, skeptical, challenging.

Tom shrugged. "She still needs to learn to not pull such tricks. No matter what's happening to her, she's still in control of her own actions." His gaze leveled on Joe again. "Don't bother saving someone from their own stupidity. It's almost always a waste of time."

What the sheriff had said, in less words: _butt out of it._ Joe said nothing, but inside, he was seething again.

"So…" Tom said, "…now that I've thoroughly jumped your case over accepting your own responsibility, the big question remains: what are you accepting responsibility _for?"_

Another slap; it caught Joe speechless again.

"You know, you don't sound like someone in R&D," Frank said.

Tom only grinned. "Our company's a bit different. Chats around the water cooler get real interesting, let me tell you."

"If Stacy's being abused," Joe said slowly, "she's not in control. She may not realize…I mean…I want to stop that. To help her get out of it."

"You believe what Kris says, then?" Tom said. "Keep in mind, legally, it's hearsay, and considering Kris's past, highly biased. At best, it's only Stacy's word versus Mann's. And he's a respected doctor in this town."

Kris was watching him. "Yes," Joe said quietly. "I do."

"Like Joe said," Frank said, "Kris doesn't lie."

"Okay," Tom said. "That's do-able. And it's enough for tonight. You three get some sleep. We can go at this with fresh minds tomorrow."

'We'. So despite his words, Tom was planning on helping them, then. Joe watched him leave the kitchen, unable to figure him out; like Frank said, Tom didn't sound like R&D. He didn't sound anything like a corporate suit, not one bit.

"I've got too many questions," Frank said, "and I'm way too tired to ask. Kris, you take the couch. Me and Joe can rough it on the floor."

Kris pushed to her feet. "Thank you," she said quietly, to Joe.

Joe snagged her arm as she brushed past. "Tag…" He swallowed, went for it. "I'm sorry. What I said. You're not a coward. You're never that." He raised his head, met her gaze. "And I believe you."

"Right up until Stacy kisses you again, you mean," Kris said, but to Joe's relief, her mouth quirked, a small smile.

"Oh good," Frank said dryly. "Now I don't have to explain to Phil why I locked you two in his trunk..."


	11. The mysterious patient awakened

"Joe, will you give it a rest, already?" Frank groaned. Joe was his brother and his best friend, but at the moment, Frank wanted to lock him in the Walkers' basement. Joe paced the living room, back and forth, over and over, stopping only to stare out the bay window. The Walkers had gone to bed, and Frank did not want to disturb them; they'd already been way too kind to a pair of total strangers.

Over on the couch, Kris was still up, too, but at least she was quiet when she was thinking. Her arms crossed under her head, she stared at the ceiling.

"I can't," Joe said. "I can't get that house of my mind. There's something about it. Stacy kept saying it would protect her."

"That's why those men were going to burn it," Kris said, from the couch. "They didn't want to go in. They called it 'cursed'."

Frank had wondered about that, too, why the men hadn't just gone in after a couple teenagers. It didn't make any sense. "You really believe that?"

She didn't answer right away. "I don't know," she said finally, slowly. "There's stories about disturbed mounds, but that's all they are, stories. But there's also way too many accounts of what happened to Indians who died without proper ceremony. Without paint, Mar calls it. Coming back as a _chepi_ is the least of it."

"Becoming a cannibalistic ghost is the _least_ of it?"

"Maybe they come back as lawyers," Joe said, deadpan.

Kris pushed herself up to sit cross-legged in a tangle of blanket and sheets. "Well, take the _pikwatci'ni_. Like the Irish Sidhe, but _nasty_. They lure you into their territory, get you good and lost, then go after you."

Frank lined the syllables up in his head. "_Pikwatci'ni…_don't tell me you mean _'puckwudgies'?"_ He couldn't help grinning. Figures she'd take campfire tales about little trolls who could turn into porcupines _seriously._

Kris gave him one of those _looks, _a perfect sarcastic-teenage-girl '_duh'._ "If you're too lazy to learn the real pronunciation, yeah."

"'Go after'," Joe broke in. "I'm going to hate myself for asking…"

"Joe, c'mon, she's talking about _porcupines_ here."

"They drag you off, drain your soul, and enslave you as _tei-pei-wanka_," Kris said, ignoring Frank. "Take all the horror stories you've ever read about how Indians tortured captives and that's what the _pikwatci'ni_ do. You're _lucky_ if all they do is kill you."

Kris and her ghost stories — despite his joking, Frank shuddered. He'd read some very graphic histories as part of an extra credit project on the settling of the West, and unable to believe what he was reading, he'd asked Mar about it. She'd confirmed it, but then pointed him towards books that told what the _settlers_ did.

He'd gotten an F from an outraged History teacher — until Frank took his case to the principal, and then, with Mar on his side, got support from a professor-friend of hers at Boston University and backup from local tribal Elders. It'd been an interesting study in fighting the system…and not only earned him an additional A when he did an report on the whole matter for his Civics class, but made both himself and Joe friends with some of the Wampanoag tribes-folk, who were amused at the straight-laced white kid taking the Indian side of the fight.

"Thanks, tag," Joe said dryly. "Just what I needed to sleep."

"You _asked."_

"Yeah, well, next time, just forget I said anything."

"Okay," Kris said. "Just let you walk straight into the arms of the psychopathic Indian Faeries without saying anything. Got it." Not even a hint of a smile_._

Psychotic porcupines or not, it was the most talkative she'd been all night. "Migraine's gone, I take it," Frank said, still smiling.

"Stacy said the 'dead' lived there," Joe said, at the same time. "Could that be what she meant? Something like those things?"

"Joe," Frank sighed, "you know how stories start. Probably someone did die near that hill, and the story's just gotten wilder."

Kris hesitated. "I don't know. Maybe. If it's Faery folk,usually the whole area's disturbed."

"That house was," Joe said.

"The _house_?" Frank said skeptically. Oh, great. Now Joe was going to start.

"You know what I mean," Joe said. "It just felt weird, like something was watching."

"Joe…"

"C'mon, Frank, even Dad says that's detective instinct!"

"Dad wasn't talking about ghosts," Frank said. Trust Kris to add psychic boogeymen to the mix; between their tagalong and Stacy, his brother's imagination was running away with him, Frank could tell. "It's just an old house."

"You weren't up there," Joe said. "There's a connection, somehow. Between Stacy and that house. I know it."

"You're getting side-tracked," Frank said, firm, even. "That house has nothing to do with Stacy being abused. If we're going to go after anyone, we should go after Mann. Or Stacy's mother."

"Forget her mother," Kris said. "There's nothing you can say that'll convince her."

"We have to try, tag —"

"Frank,"Kris sighed it out, "she'll just accuse Stacy of lying." Kris bowed her head. "That's the way it works. You're the one lying, you're the one being bad, and you might as well keep your mouth shut, because it'll just get worse if you don't."

She rarely talked about her past, and Frank and Joe never asked. But when she did, it tended to leave her withdrawn and moody. The brothers usually tried to short-circuit it when it happened; they'd made a game of getting her to smile.

"And because of what she's been doing," Joe said. "With seeing things, I mean. The townsfolk won't believe her, either."

The light from the window gave Kris's eyes an odd, feral gleam. "You believe she's really psychic."

Joe hesitated.

"No, she's not," Frank said firmly. "She's acting spooky, yes, but that's it. If she's hearing voices, that fits the whole schizophrenia thing." He clamped his tired mouth shut before it could add anything else, but he saw the obvious connection. Two abused girls, both claiming to be psychic — with reality so bad for them, no wonder they'd chosen the un-real.

Kris had gotten lucky, with Mar. And Stacy hadn't.

"You didn't hear her when we were in that house," Joe said.

"There might be a connection," Kris said, not looking at them. "I used to have a place I'd hide. An abandoned apartment building. Junkies used it when they were shooting up, street people used it as crash space. They'd ignore me, if I was careful. Sometimes…sometimes I could avoid stuff that way."

"Jesus, tag," Joe said softly.

"You're not bad." Frank reached to grip her hand. "And _never_ keep your mouth shut around us." He leaned into her line of sight. "Someone has to help me give Joe nightmares about porcupines."

"Thanks a lot," Joe said.

"Sorry," Kris breathed, running her hand through her hair. "I didn't mean to be a downer. I meant…I'd hide stuff there. Stuff I didn't want them to find." She smiled a little. "Pretty rocks. A seagull feather. And notebooks. I'd write, draw — let myself vent —"

"You're thinking maybe Stacy's done the same thing," Joe said. "Evidence."

"You two just aren't going to be satisfied until we go search the big spooky house on the hill, are you?" Frank said. At least Kris's explanation made solid, non-spooky sense, though.

"Something else Stacy said," Joe said slowly, leaning back against the window sill, "before we ran — that 'he' would protect her. That 'he' would take her away."

"Who?" Frank said.

"Someone else was in that house," Joe said. "Not a _ghost,"_ that, to Frank's _look_, "someone real. We heard them."

"She mentioned someone called 'Allen'," Kris said.

"Someone who's helping her, maybe," Joe said. "Someone we can use as a witness."

Frank sighed. "Fine. I get the point. We'll search the big spooky house. In the _morning_."

"Frank," Joe said, with just a hint of a grin, "you're not scared of going there at night, are you?"

Great. His brother was in one of _those_ moods; worse, Kris was already pulling on her sneakers. Frank pushed himself up to sit. "Look, you two, it's almost two a.m. There's something called _sleep_ that I'd prefer to do right now."

Joe heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Okay. Okay. I guess me and tag can face the demons of the night alone. See you in the morning."

Kris breathed something that sounded suspiciously like a laugh and scrambled off the couch to follow Joe out the door. Frank only sat there, in a tangle of sleeping bag. Annoying younger brother and their tagalong shadow, check. He should've locked them in Phil's trunk after all. Finally, Frank pulled his own shoes and jacket on, followed.

"Wow," Joe said, as Frank opened the van door. "You actually held out for a good two minutes. I'm impressed."

"Brothers," Frank muttered


	12. Could she be the sister of the boy

_It'd been a couple weeks after they'd moved in. Kris hadn't been able to sleep; the nightmares had been too vivid, too real. She'd finally given up and crept out to the old sugar maple out back — it had become a good friend in that short time. She felt safe in its branches, especially the highest ones that let her see nearly the whole neighborhood and the ocean just beyond the cliff. With everything spread below her, with the wind blowing and only the star-speckled sky above her, it was easy to pretend she was flying._

_Then she'd seen the annoying boys next door sneaking out of their house through an upstairs window and cutting across their back yard. They'd scared the daylights out of her, that first day; Mar had let Kris sob herself out, then explained that no one would_ ever_ send her back, but Kris still stayed wary of the brothers. But now…they looked like they were up to no good._

_Maybe it was payback time. _

_She'd slid down from the tree, took off after them. They weren't making any effort to hide themselves. Following them was easy, especially when she deliberately — and cautiously — lowered her mental shields and 'listened'. The younger one, Joe, was _loud,_ excited, his thoughts flitting so chaotically from one to the next that she couldn't tell what he was so excited about._

_She'd followed them to an old abandoned farmhouse, just outside town limits in the farm country, surrounded by overgrown fields, weeds, ancient cherry trees in full flower, a yard loaded with dandelions and rusting vehicles: shells of cars, tractors, the bed of a semi. The house looked a little like an old San Francisco painted lady, but without any color, gray-weathered wood, faded and lifeless, sagging roof, moth-eaten yellow curtains blowing through shattered windows. The front of the house was divided by a boxy turret-tower that rose above the rest, its topmost windows busted and open to the wind. _

_The boys had pried the front door open and squeezed through. They still hadn't seen her. Careful to keep out of sight of the door, Kris had crept onto the rotting porch, peeped through a broken window. She couldn't see them, though she could hear their voices muffled through the walls, excited chattering and the occasional exasperated "Joe…" _

_She'd climbed through the window, found herself in a dilapidated room off the foyer, the remains of a fireplace crumbling against the wall. The floor had been rotted through in spots and covered in dead branches and dried leaves. Faded wallpaper peeled from the wall in crumbly, molded strips, the bowed ceiling tile cracked and hanging in chunks. A startled garter snake had slithered away as she'd watched, fascinated. _

_Cautiously, she'd eased up to the archway, peered through. The boys' voices had been somewhere above her. A staircase (railing still somehow intact) had swept around the far wall of the foyer. The place had been a little chilly, but otherwise, she'd felt oddly comfortable. Something about the old place had felt curious, as if it was wondering who these visitors were…_

_She'd crept up the stairs to the second floor landing. The stairs had continued into the tower; the brothers' voices echoed from up there, and she could see a pair of mud-smeared red sneakers on the last visible stair, bouncing up and down. But she'd stared down the hall; the air smelled of dust and night wind, rotting wood and mold, damp plaster and rust…and she caught a brief glimpse of someone running into a room._

_She'd glanced up: both brothers definitely above her. Drawn, Kris had slipped down the hall to the last room on the left, watching her step; the floor had been mushy in spots. In the doorway, she'd stopped._

_A young girl, much younger than her, had stood there, watching Kris with wide eyes. The girl had been dressed in a long, severely-plain yellow dress, curly brown hair chopped short. _

_And like Noah had been, somewhat transparent. _

"_Hi," Kris had breathed, moving just inside the door to stand uncertainly, shuffling her feet. "I'm Kris."_

_The girl's face had lit up with a gap-toothed smile. "Abby." More felt than heard, just like Noah, as if her voice had been removed from the air, leaving only the after-echo of words. _

"_You're all by yourself?"_

_Abby's smile vanished. "Mommy locked me back here. She wouldn't open the door." She'd looked down. "Then they all went away."_

_Her mother hadn't wanted her, either. "You can come home with me, if you want. Mar wouldn't mind."_

_The little girl had shaken her head. She'd looked so sad. "Mommy said I had to stay here." She'd kicked at a dirty, half-deflated rubber ball, and it'd rolled towards Kris. _

_Kris had kicked the ball back, and Abby's face had lit back up. The girls were soon involved in an impromptu game of dodge, and Kris had started giggling with her new friend — _

"_How are you doing that?" _

_She'd yelped, grabbed up a length of broken wood from the floor, backed up against the wall and brandished the impromptu weapon. Frank and Joe had stood in the doorway, both staring at her, wide-eyed. _

_Kris had been shaking so hard she could barely stand. These two wanted to send her back to her original parents, and now they had her cornered. They'd snuck up on her, and Mar wasn't anywhere around — she wasn't going to go, she wasn't! _

"_It's okay." Joe had held his hands palms-out as he'd eased into the room. "It's okay. We won't hurt you." But his gaze had kept moving to where Abby stood, and he'd looked uncertain, blinking, shaking his head as if to clear it. _

"_He looks like my brother," Abby had said, soft, breathy, the ball forgotten at her feet. "He kept trying to open the door. Mommy got really mad at him."_

"_You can do magic tricks?" Frank had said, almost at the same time. "That's really neat. Dad took us to see Blackstone in New York, and he did stuff like that, too."_

_Her original parents had never called anything she did 'neat', but Kris had no idea who Frank was talking about. She hadn't lowered the wood, and Abby had chosen that moment to kick the ball again. It'd rolled across the floor, stopped at Frank's feet._

"_Wow," Frank said; he'd watched it with open interest, but Joe had gone wide-eyed again. "Can you teach us how to do that?"_

_Still wary, untrusting, Kris had only watched him. Just like her parents, he couldn't see her friend, either. But Frank hadn't looked scared or upset at all; neither boy did. She'd swallowed hard, then cautiously let her mental shields go. 'Trust your Gift,' Mar had told her. _

"_Hey," Joe had said, "we're sorry 'bout…I mean, 'bout before. We didn't know about your mom and dad being so bad."_

"_Joe!" Frank had elbowed him hard, then had turned solemn and way too old for his age. "We really are sorry."_

"_Are you looking for the treasure, too?" Joe had started bouncing up and down again; the muddy red sneakers had been his. _

"_Treasure?" Kris had said, before she could stop herself. Both boys had radiated nothing but curiosity and eagerness, and it had been hard to keep her wariness in the face of such open, friendly honesty. _

_That had set Frank and Joe off on a long, complicated explanation about Old Man Applegate and his pirate ancestors; Abby had giggled through most of it. Kris had ended up following Frank and Joe around the old farm, looking for possible pirate hiding places and finding mostly snakes and old beer cans. Frank had explained how snakes moved with no legs and stopped Kris from picking one up when she wanted to see for herself; Joe had collected the cans, giving a rambling, excited explanation of fingerprints when Kris asked why. _

_The next night, Kris had gone back to the old farm, to Abby's delight, and as often as she could after that. Abby had been sad when she'd realized Kris was growing up and Abby wasn't…though by then, Kris had gotten enough training in her Gifts to realize what had happened to her friend. Kris had told Mar about the little girl, and the next day, Mar had brought Sharon Walker home with her. Kris had taken Sharon out to the abandoned farm that night and introduced her to Abby…_

_Abby finally got to go home. _

Despite the situation, Kris still felt a thrill when the house loomed back into view; she loved exploring old, abandoned buildings, ghosts or no ghosts. The pamphlet from the motel had confirmed what she'd overheard earlier, that the VFW from Wareham had bought the house and was planning to use it for a haunted-house tourist-trap fundraiser — that explained why the interior was still in good shape, but didn't explain what she'd felt below the floor earlier. Old spooky-weird house, a possible Indian mound…

"Ruh-roh, Raggy," Joe said, then yelped when Frank dumped the remainder of the McD's cup on him.

"Can the Scooby-Doo act," Frank said. "This was _your_ idea, Daphne."

"_Daphne? Daphne?"_

"Long hair, check. Bait for the opposite sex, check —"

Joe thumped his chest. "Brains!"

"Sorry, little brother," Frank said, with a grin back at Kris. "The 'brain' part's already taken. That's me and tag."

They were trying to make her smile, that was obvious. Kris had been debating whether to tell them about the VFW, though. It'd be amusing to see if they could figure it out, or what reasons they'd come up with for the house's condition. Then, too…if Joe was finally starting to admit that the Gifts existed…Kris didn't want to shut that down, even if it meant letting Stacy continue with her lie.

Yeah. Stacy.

Complicated problem. Complicated _mess._ Even if they got Stacy out of the mess she was in, it didn't help little Jenny in the hospital. It didn't fix that at all.

But lie or not, Kris wasn't about to take any chances that any part of Stacy's story about this hill wasn't true; whatever Kris had felt earlier in the place meant something was seriously wrong there. She'd been slipping stuff into the inner pockets of her jacket when Frank and Joe's attention was distracted, supplies taken from the sealed pouch in her duffel bag: a small bottle of holy water from the Bayport Catholic church, black-iron nails, a sandwich bag of sage, another of salt. If there were _pikwatci'ni _around, they wouldn't get her or the brothers without a fight.

Frank wasn't as distracted as she thought — he spotted her putting the salt into her jacket. He didn't say anything, only shook his head, mouth quirked in a half-smile.

Kris felt herself blushing. If only Frank would accept the possibility that such things were _real…_or Joe his own Gift…

Might as well wish for a pony, while she was at it. Kris rooted in the duffel bag again. "Joe, what'd you do with my knife?" It wasn't cold iron, but steel was still enough to mess up any Faeries' day, no matter what the natives called them — not to mention that they didn't know who was actually in that house.

They'd reached the iron gates; Joe threw the van into park. "In your bag."

Kris went cold. "It's not here."

"I put it back —" Joe stopped, then collapsed back in the driver's seat, head thrown back, eyes closed. "Oh no. Don't tell me."

"Dear God," Frank said quietly.

Silence held for a long moment. Kris wanted to curse, swallowed it down. It wouldn't do any good. The Bowie had been a gift from her friend Joshua, who'd just made sergeant in his Special Ops unit: real Army issue, an open message of hope in her ability to become a Blade. Joshua never did anything like that unless he felt you deserved it…

"If anything happens that involves blood and screaming," Kris said finally, "I vote for lying through our teeth and swearing we have no clue where Stacy got the knife."

"What knife?" Joe muttered. "I didn't see any knife. Did you see any knife, Frank?"

Frank rubbed at his forehead. "Somehow, I don't think Bowies are standard issue out here."

They couldn't just go to the Blaines and demand it — well, Kris could, but that would either get Stacy in trouble or result in a fight and uncomfortable questions about why Kris had such a knife. Frank and Joe knew, and she trusted their knowing — Kris had been debating asking Joshua for similar knives for them, after Frank had expressed open envy over hers.

No use crying about it now. She could only count the knife as lost, for the moment.

"C'mon, you two," Frank said finally. "Let's go search your big spooky house. Maybe we can confront Stacy tomorrow or something." He slanted a glance back at Kris. "Out of curiosity, what makes you think this's an Indian mound?"

He expected some _weird_ explanation, that was obvious. Luckily, Kris didn't have one. "It's all flatlands around here. Except for this hill. I was going to tell Mar about it and let her tell the elders."

"Well, if that's all." Kris blinked; Frank had actually sounded _disappointed._ He opened the door and slid out, helped her from the van, handed her one of the flashlights. "I don't want to accidentally desecrate a burial site."

"Sounds like someone believes those stories after all," Joe said, grinning.

"No," Frank said calmly. "You've heard Mar. The burials are sacred, just like our church. I don't want to get into trouble with the Wampanoag."

"Uh-huh." Joe wrung Coke out of his shirt, flicked his wet hand towards Frank, splattering him with drops of soda, then dodged Frank's mock-punch.

Between the storm-clouds and the depth of the night, it was pitch-black, not even moonlight to see by, only intense flashes of lightning crossing the sky — and all three watched those nervously. They'd crossed through the gates, but Kris stopped momentarily, ran her hand over the cold metal. Black iron. Cold iron. Proof against the Fae and other beasties…

"Well…" Kris said, catching up to Frank and Joe, "if it's the _pikwatci'ni,_ just walking on their ground gets you in trouble." She glanced back towards the trees. The fire had gone out, though two of the saplings were scorched-black and gray. "They can make all kinds of bad accidents happen."

Accidents…the _pikwatci'ni _had the ability to start fires…

"Wonderful," Joe muttered.

But Kris turned to look at the trees; they looked eerie and skeletal in the faint flashlight. The rain earlier had been sheeting down. Everything was mud and puddles, the grass sodden, the ground slick and squelching. Frank had only tossed a road flare, and the lightning had struck the house, not the trees — how'd the blaze start?

And lightning had struck the house…

"You know, between you and Stacy," Frank said, to Kris, "I'm surprised Scooby-Doo here wanted to come back."

"I thought I was Daphne —" Joe stopped; Frank only gave him an innocent look, not quite smiling.

Kris bit her lip, unwilling to just put it down to chance, but not about to say anything. Not yet, anyway. The rain had stopped, but the climb up the hill was still treacherous in the dark — mud, wet long grass, mole hills, hidden branches.

"Doesn't look very friendly, does it?" Frank said, as they neared the porch.

"That's how Stacy talked," Joe said. "Like it was alive — Kris?" That, as Kris jumped.

For a moment, Kris didn't move, trying to get her breath back. "A snake went right over my foot. Startled me, that's all."

"Well, if that's the worst this place can do," Frank said, "we're safe."

"Big brother," Kris said carefully, with another glance towards the trees, "how about not tossing out challenges like that? Something might take you up on it."

"Tag, stop it, it's just a house."

"I wasn't talking about the house." She gave Frank her own innocent look. "You really need to read your Bible better."

"About that," Frank said. "At Stacy's house. How'd you know all that stuff? You're not a Bible-thumper. You don't even go to church."

She'd been expecting the question. Kris swung onto the front porch and bounced a little: for such a dilapidated-looking porch, the wood was solid. "You really want to know?"

It was a guarded code-phrase between the three of them, to not push unless it was really important, that it had something to do with her original parents. Frank watched her a moment, then clasped her shoulder. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Kris said quietly. "I'm just surprised I got away with it." She sighed. "There's nothing that a Bible-thumper hates more than _another_ Bible-thumper with a different interpretation."

"I noticed," Frank said dryly.

"Well," Joe said, _"I_ want to know, about the hair thing." He was grinning again. "Just what exactly did we vow?"

"It means you can't kiss any girls for a year." Frank sounded distracted; he was running his hand over one of the porch's support posts. "Interesting. Not rotted. Smooth. No splinters. And no broken windows, either."

"That's a 'we', brother. She said both of us." Joe nodded towards the door. "Wait 'til you see the inside."

"The nazirite vows," Kris said. "From the Book of Numbers. You can't cut your hair, you can't go near any dead bodies, and you can't touch anything to do with grapes."

"Like Samson," Frank said, and Kris nodded.

"Doesn't sound so bad." Joe was watching the hill and trees. "I can handle that."

"That's just the Bible version. Most groups add more to it. Complete chastity, no alcohol at all, nothing they call 'hedonistic' —"

"Joe'd break that just sitting in our room." Frank walked to the end of the porch, studying the windows and wood.

Joe gave him a _look. _"You're really hysterical."

"— and when the vow's over, you shave your head." Kris studied the porch. Something wasn't right, some detail was off.

"So, technically," Frank said thoughtfully, coming back, "the vows were over the moment we left Stacy's house." He grinned at Joe. "There's scissors in the emergency kit."

"_Both_ of us." Joe glared at his brother.

"She griped about _your_ hair, not mine."

"Joe," Kris said, uneasily, "we left the door open, right?"

That silenced them. The door was solidly, definitely shut, and all Kris remembered was running — she hadn't cared about a door for an abandoned house, and she didn't think Joe would've, either.

Frank shrugged. "If someone else's here, he probably closed it. Or the wind blew it shut."

He was right, as usual. But Kris was sorely tempted to risk another migraine — along with a possible lecture from the Walkers on overusing Gift — and open the door with her TK.

No. Probably wasn't worth it.

"Someone went to a lot of trouble to make this all look like it's about to fall to pieces," Joe said, as Frank reached for the door knob — and the door opened, by itself.

Silence.

"At least the place is hospitable," Frank said, then mock-glared as Kris went to the doorway. "Tag, don't you _dare_ start."

Kris had invoked mage-sight, staring through. She hadn't felt anything; granted, her Gifts were all small, but if any ghost or spirit had enough power to do something like that, it should've left _some_ traces. "I'm not. I'm trying to figure out how it did that. I'm with you. That was too convenient."

"Motion sensor?" Joe eyed the top of the door frame, moving his flashlight over it inch by inch.

"I think…" Frank was testing spots on the porch with his foot. Suddenly the door swung closed. "Got it. Trigger right here. Pressure sensor."

"It didn't do that before," Joe said.

"Just this one spot." Frank stomped it again; the door opened. "You probably missed it." He scowled at the door. "Okay. So why would anyone put something like this on an old house? And why leave it on?"

"Somehow that scares me even more," Joe muttered.

Kris kept her face carefully neutral. No. She definitely wasn't going to mention the VFW and the haunted house. Not yet, anyway.

…though Frank had a valid, scary point: why was the sensor active? The VFW wasn't supposed to start it up for another week or so...

She swung her flashlight back over the hill and trees, and froze. Something was moving down there.

"I saw it, too," Joe said to her, quietly. "I've been watching since we hit the porch."

"Saw what?" Frank said.

Joe didn't say anything for a long moment. "Something's down there."

"Joe, if _you_ start talking about puckwudgies, I'm going to tell Aunt Gertrude what you did with your sweater."

Kris managed to keep her face straight. She'd seen it in the back of the van, smeared with grease and mud from the motorcycle tires; the battle of wills between Joe and Aunt Gertrude over that awful argyle thing was _epic._

"Or someone from the lynch mob's still watching the place," Joe said defensively. "Or whoever owns this place has guards on it."

"If they're guards, they didn't do anything earlier," Kris said.

"Whoever it is still isn't doing anything," Frank said. "We've been up here for a few minutes now. If it's the lynch mob, they're not after _us_. C'mon."

Frank stepped through the doorway, but Kris and Joe didn't follow; Joe was still watching the trees. "That fire earlier…"

Maybe it had been just a freak accident. But somehow Kris couldn't say that. "If it helps," she said quietly, "there's cold iron between us and the trees. That fence."

"_Those_ old tales." Joe shivered. "I'm never reading Brothers Grimm again." But then he gave her a really odd look. "So is the fence keeping them out or the house _in?"_

That was the closest that either Frank or Joe had ever come to taking her seriously on such things — and Joe's question hit the mark dead-on. Kris just looked at him.

"Never mind." Joe turned to follow after Frank. "Forget I said anything."

Kris only stood there, unsure what had just happened, wondering what had changed. Joe tended to be easier to spook — though not so easy to scare off — but he was just as skeptical as Frank over anything they deemed 'oogy-boogy stuff'. More so, in some ways, as if he was trying to hold it all at bay by simply denying it.

This couldn't have been all because of Stacy. It couldn't have been. The girl was about as Gifted as a rock.

Then again, this was Joe…

_Boys…_


	13. The Young Intern Frowned

_Author's quick note: I've read a lot of cutesy scenes about how the Hardys handled the "monster in the closet" when they were kids, usually with a flashlight. No, no,__** no**__, people. This is __**Frank & Joe Hardy**__ — and Laura & Fenton — we're talking about. THIS is how it happened…_

* * *

><p>###<p>

"_How come you never smile?" Joe had asked Kris._

_They'd been sitting under the old sugar maple, the brothers and the new girl; Mar had received a gift of ground bison meat from family back on the Arizona reservation, and she'd invited the Hardys over for a cookout of bison burgers. Somehow Joe couldn't imagine Indians eating something so normal as a cheeseburger, but it'd been really good, especially because Mar topped it with cheddar cheese produced at the Mortons' farm, and Aunt Gertrude had done her special homemade potato salad. The burgers had a wild, gamey flavor, smoked and charred in all the right spots. _

_Kris had only shrugged. _

_Joe had thought back over those books he and Frank had read, the stories that had given him nightmares. Maybe… "Don't you know how?" _

"_Of course she does, stupid," Frank said. "She was laughing in that old house. You were," that, to Kris, who'd looked down, turned beet-red, "we heard you."_

"_You and that other kid," Joe added. _

_Frank had stared. "What other kid?"_

_Kris had raised her head. Joe had thought he'd seen another girl that day, but then she hadn't been there; she'd vanished into thin air. No. People just didn't disappear like that. Maybe just an optical illusion from the windows. "Fred," he said instead, grinning at Frank._

_His brother had grinned back, but Kris had only looked confused. "Fred? Her name's Ab—" Then she'd bit her lip and stared back down at her plate._

"_Fred's the monster in our closet," Frank had said. "Wanna see?"_

"_We beat him up," Joe said proudly. _

_She'd looked from one to the other, openly suspicious. "Closets don't have monsters." _

"_Of course _yours _doesn't," Joe had said, for the moment all-superior boy. "We caught Fred before he could get to yours." _

_The monster had invaded the closet when they were little, a few years before Mom had died. Joe had seen it one night, and that'd been it. He'd refused to sleep in his and Frank's room, no matter what Mom or Dad said, no matter what _Frank_ said, and while the living room couch was lumpy, it was at least safe. _

_Frank had tried and tried to convince Joe that it didn't exist, but Joe knew better. The monster didn't want Frank, it wanted Joe. Joe had heard the monster growling, its shadowy, hungry shape reaching its claws toward Joe whenever he'd let a hand or foot slip over the edge of the bed. Of course it wasn't there when Frank opened the closet. Of course it wasn't there when Frank shone a flashlight in. It was a monster. Monsters could do things like that. That's why they were monsters. _

_Finally, his brother had come up with a very practical, very Frank plan: kill it. _

_That night, they'd both waited in bed with baseball bats. Wood had to work; it worked on vampires, didn't it? Joe's had been his special Red Sox souvenir bat, autographed by Carl Yastrzemski. So it had to work. It had to._

_Sometime after midnight, the brothers had been startled awake by angry, _hungry _growls coming from the closet._

_Trembling, Joe had clutched his bat, waiting for his brother to do something, anything — it'd been Frank's plan, Frank's idea! But Frank hadn't moved, wide-eyed and gasping, and the growls had grown louder, angrier, _hungrier, _snarling out their names. That had done it; Joe wasn't going to let the monster get his brother without a fight. Shaking and certain that he was about to get eaten, Joe had slid from his bed and tip-toed towards the closet, bat raised. But then, unexpectedly, Frank made it to Joe's side, and Joe had relaxed, just a little. At least they'd get eaten together. Frank had yanked the closet door open, and Joe had seen a large, fanged something —_

_Joe had yelled an Indian war cry that he'd heard Tonto use on 'The Lone Ranger' — and both brothers whomped it with the bats, pounding the monster until it lay at their feet and the growls died with multiple plastic cracks, breaking bones and fangs — _

"_What are you two doing?" The bedroom lights had snapped on, and Mom and Dad stood in the doorway. The 'monster' lay at Joe's feet, a large furry over-stuffed red toy thing with gaping fangs and one arm hanging half-off its body, a Sesame-Street-style monster on steroids and happy pills. Joe stood there, staring down, panting. It'd looked really goofy, cowering there, now that the lights were on…_

_He'd whacked it again, for good measure._

"_You know," Mom had said; Dad had only looked stern, but his mouth had been twitching, "if you're brave enough to beat up a monster, that means it has to be your friend."_

_She'd sewn the monster's arm back on that night, and it'd stayed in the corner near Joe's bed. Joe had tagged it 'Fred', complete with a Red Sox baseball cap, sunglasses from one of Dad's NYPD buddies, and a souvenir lei from Hawaii that Dad brought back when he'd taken Mom on a second honeymoon… _

_By the time Joe finished telling Fred's story, he and Frank had taken Kris up to their room to show the monster off…and Kris had started giggling. She had a great giggle, giddy and real, totally unlike the stupid simpering things that some of their friends' sisters did. Joe had liked it, and decided that he'd really liked Kris's smile, too. _

_Maybe he and Frank could teach her to smile more often. _

To this day, Joe still wasn't sure how real the monster had been. Oh, Fred was real enough — Mom had made the furry fanged thing; it was one of the reasons Joe kept Fred in the room, long after he'd outgrown kids' toys. The growls, though, were another matter. Frank swore the noise had been a tape recorder, but Joe didn't remember anything like that.

But Joe was wishing he'd brought the bat and that Kris still had her knife. He wasn't sure what was in the trees — whoever or whatever it was, it teased in and out of the edge of flashlight range. If it was a guard for whoever owned the house, it should've confronted them by now. It could be one of the lynch mob, but Joe couldn't think of any reason why those men would still be hanging around, at this point.

Well, it wasn't bothering them, yet. He'd figure it out later.

Frank had stopped just inside the doorway, his flashlight moving across the paintings.

"Some place, huh?" Joe said quietly, gazing up towards the empty landing. As before, he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched.

"Yeah," Frank said, just as quietly, as Kris came in behind them and swept her flashlight across the landing. "This place can't be abandoned. Not for as long as Stacy said. It's in too good shape."

"Frank…" Joe's attention had been caught by flickering, warm light to his right. He peered in, then entered the parlor, his sneakers crunching on the shattered glass from the lightning-blown chandelier.

The fire still burned, strong and high. The logs didn't even look as if they'd been touched.

"This fire shouldn't be burning like this," Joe said, as Frank and Kris came in the room; Kris stopped in the doorway. "Not after all this time."

"If there's someone else in the house —" Frank said.

"But why stoke a fire, then leave it?" The decidedly-spooked corner of Joe's brain was back and getting annoyingly insistent. "And then not clean up broken glass?"

"They haven't cleaned anything else." Frank ran a hand over a cobwebby birdcage, started to wipe it off against his jeans, then halted, rubbing a bit of cobweb between his fingers. "Joe, this is fake — what?"

"Nothing." Kris had been staring at the floor intently, but looked up with the same overly-innocent expression she'd had in the motel.

Great. She was playing mysterious again. Joe eyed her, but Kris had gone back to frowning at the floor.

Frank rolled his eyes. "Fine, be that way, tag."

This time, Joe took a good look at the parlor, walking slowly around its perimeter: ripped lace curtains, thick draperies. More spooky Victorian paintings, a faded Persian rug, an ancient armillary by the fireplace, dusty chairs covered in stained, threadbare velvet. An antique pedal harp stood in one corner — Joe ran a hand over the strings. No broken strings and they still sounded, though out of tune; the tuning pins were rust-free.

No one should do this to an instrument, just leave it in an abandoned house. Especially not one as expensive as a harp. Joe scowled. If the place really was abandoned, he was going to load it in the van and take it back to their church.

But he was also watching Kris out of the corner of his eye. She hadn't moved from the doorway, still stared at the floor, her gaze moving slowly over it as her frown deepened.

"Fake cobwebs." Frank had done his own walk of the room, opened the large china cupboard — empty. "Pressure sensor on the door. A porch meant to look run-down. I'm not liking this."

"Renovation work, maybe." Memory finally clicked. "Dr. Mann said something. Something about 'out-of-towners' using this house, remember?"

"Using it for what?" Frank said.

There'd been lurid stories in the news lately about so-called cults; just last month, Mar and Fenton had both ripped the Bayport PTA a new one about the PTA's hysteria over supposed "Satanists and witches" who'd vandalized the high school. But there had to be some truth behind the news stories, to Joe's mind…

Mrs. Blaine had called the out-of-towners 'devil's work'. Something was in the trees, something that didn't want to confront them. Out-of-towners, using the house. The house made to look like something it wasn't…

…and Stacy claimed the house would protect her.

"I'm not sure we're going to like the answer," Joe said slowly. "But we need to find out."

Silence for a moment; Frank finally shrugged. "We'll get done faster if we split up. I'll take upstairs. Kris?"

She looked up. "Basement."

"First floor for me," Joe said.

"Joe, c'mon," Frank said, "you're not really going to let our little tagalong search the basement all by herself?"

"_Me?_ _You're_ taking the upstairs!"

"It's the most dangerous part," Frank said calmly. "The upper floors are where bats and wasp nests are. The floor's probably rotted through, too. It needs an older, more experienced hand to search up there."

"I'll be fine," Kris said. "Seriously. I can handle a basement."

"No, tag," Frank said. "I'm not about to let you go into a dark, demon-infested pit all by yourself. Joe'll go with you."

"You're all heart." Joe slanted a glance at Kris to see how this was playing. Not quite a smile, but almost. Score.

"Next time, don't keep me up after two a.m." Frank clapped Joe on the shoulder as he passed.

Kris gave Frank a very odd look. "Demon-infested pit, huh?"

"Don't worry, tag." Joe heaved an exaggerated sigh. "At least we'll get eaten together. Then he'll have to explain it all to Dad and Mar."

"Like you always say," Frank said, "it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it."

"Frank," Kris said. "There was someone else here earlier. Me and Joe didn't imagine that. Splitting up may not be such a good idea."

"I passed brown belt trial last week. I should be okay."

"Leaving me with the guy flunking karate," Kris said dryly. "Thanks a lot."

"Nope," Joe said cheerfully, before Frank could answer. "He's leaving me with the girl who punched a guy in the nuts. I'm safe."

Frank went on up the stairs — despite the joking, Joe noted his brother tested each stair before putting weight fully on it. Good idea: just because what they'd seen so far was in good shape was no reason to assume the rest was. Given the pressure sensor out front, there could be other surprises waiting for them, too.

Pleasant thought.

Kris was eyeing the door under the stairs, but Joe wasn't ready to take on the basement yet. He headed past it to the kitchen, peering through the door first to make sure no one was back there before he went in, Kris right behind him.

"The water was on earlier." Joe tried the faucet again; he hadn't imagined it, and the water ran mostly clear. Counters covered in crumbs and some ants. A couple cans of cheap knock-off soda in the ice-box, warm. Three empty Mad Dog bottles under the sink.

"You said something about out-of-towners," Kris said. "There's food here." She'd opened one of the cupboards: a half-used loaf of Wonder bread, a nearly-empty jar of peanut butter. "Joe, if some tramp's shacking up…"

"Stacy's mom called it 'devil's work'." Joe grinned at Kris's eye-roll. "Yeah. That's what I thought. God only knows what she meant." Quieter, "If we run into someone like that, I'll delay him, you run."

"I'll punch him and you run, you mean," Kris said. "If it is a tramp, he's not going to be very helpful."

That had occurred to Joe, too. The thought of Stacy — pretty, blonde, and already not well-wrapped — running into a tramp used to rough living…the thought made Joe shudder.

The other room, across from the parlor was a dining room, judging from the huge table and chairs. Something sat at one of those chairs, ominous and shadowy in the uncertain light of the flashlights: a cobwebbed, shawl-wrapped figure, topped with an obvious gray wig.

"Motherrrrrrrr," Kris murmured, under her breath.

Joe elbowed her, hard. Together they went up to it — an old woman's mummified corpse, teeth bared in a gaping skeletal grin, skin dried tight over the skull, no eyes, decaying dress. Joe couldn't stop himself; he and Kris touched it at the same time, and he grinned when he heard her breathe out a long sigh of relief. Fake.

"Oh, come on, you thought it, too," Kris said.

"Whoever owns this place, I don't like their sense of humor." Joe played the flashlight over the walls — red was splashed over them, long streaks down to the floor. It couldn't be blood; blood turned brown or black after it dried. He moved closer, flaked some off with his thumbnail: paint, definitely.

Okay. Out-of-towners using this place for something that Mrs. Blaine called "devil's work". With decorations like this…some type of cult, maybe. Phony devil-occult stuff, to freak people out.

In his mind, Joe could almost see Mar rolling her eyes over that assumption. But he'd read the _Satanic Bible,_ courtesy Kris's weird book collection. She'd lent it to him and Frank when they saw it and got on her case; her exact words: "don't kill yourselves laughing over it." Dad had caught them with it and laughed long and hard himself over their embarrassed explanation, though the brothers were _very_ careful to not let Aunt Gertrude see it.

Joe didn't understand what the fuss was about. Kris had been right: the book was a huge joke, the ultimate scam religion, La Vey nothing more than an old carny geek who got off on folks being scared of him. How anyone could take it seriously…

But obviously, folks did. So, thinking about it, then, if this place was designed to make people scared, that'd be just what so-called Satanists would want, wouldn't it?

Kris was staring at the floor again. This time, Joe caught her gaze moving, as if she was following something along the wall between this room and foyer. "What are you looking at?"

"The basement."

Great. Evidently she'd decided to pull a spooky act, too. _Girls…!_

"What you said," Joe said, hoping to distract her, "about the _pikwatci'ni." _ He remembered that from fairy tales, that some things got upset if you called them the wrong name. He didn't want to anger anything by calling it that stupid 'puckwudgie' name, and after everything else tonight, he wasn't taking chances. "You serious, or just pulling our legs?"

Kris hesitated far too long. "I wish I was just joking. I was just using it as an example. But coming back out here…" She hesitated again. "Joe, that rain had everything soaked. Frank only tossed a road flare."

"The fire, you mean? Freak accident. The lightning strike."

"Frank said the fire started before the lightning hit." Kris ran her hand absently over one of the chairs. "I'm usually with you guys on stuff like this, you know that. But you said you saw stuff in the trees, too." She broke off, bit her lip.

She had him, there. Joe had to be honest. Kris loved ghost stories, insisted that oogy-boogy stuff was real. But in some ways, she was just as skeptical as he and Frank; she'd helped them catch out a couple fake psychics in Bayport and one nasty so-called 'haunting' hiding a real murder, among other things.

The sensor, the fake corpse, the paint, the porch: all of it added up to someone real doing such things to deliberately freak people out. But none of it explained why this place was setting his nerves on edge. If it was the _pikwatci'ni_…no. He wasn't going to bring that up, not yet. "C'mon. Let's check out the demon pit."

"Joe." Something about Kris's tone stopped him. "Seriously. Go help Frank. I can check the basement myself."

What was that about? "No way," Joe said, as they headed back into the foyer. "If a demon eats you, Frank'll never let me live it down."

"If a demon eats me," flat, serious, "it'll go after you next."

Joe just looked at her, unsure how to take that.

"I'm serious," she said. "Frank'll need your help."

"Tag, if it's a tramp, you're an easy target. You got lucky with that punch. Physics always wins in a fight —"

"It's not a tramp I'm worried about!"

Of all the times for her to pull the psychic boogyman card… "Forget it," Joe said flatly. "You're not searching the basement alone. You, small little chick. Me, guy. End statement."

"Just for that," she snapped, "if it is a demon, I'm coming back to haunt you. Exorcist-style."

"Good, someone to keep Fred company." Joe opened the basement door. Musty, cool air wafted up, smelling of damp stone, earth, and mold. "You can go first, then."

It earned him another eye-roll. But then the _something_ scraped his nerves, straight through his bones, and Joe froze on the fourth stair down, grabbed Kris's shoulder to halt her.

Something was moving, down in the dark.

Okay, no reason to assume hostility at this point. Whoever it was hadn't bothered Joe or Kris before, after all. And if Stacy was right, someone here was helping her. "It's okay," Joe called into the basement, pushing past Kris to shine his flashlight into the shadows. Whoever it was would see him first. "We're just a couple dumb teenagers checking out the spooky house. You want us to go away, we will. But we need to talk to you about Stacy."

Movement skittered at the edge of the light, towards them —

— then leaped.


	14. Stampede! the foreman shouted

Frank headed up the stairs carefully, testing each one before fully committing his weight to it — despite their joking around, the last thing he needed was a broken leg from a rotted floor. The house had been solid enough below, but appearances could be deceiving. Whatever renovation work was going on could be unfinished; the upper floors might be rotted through.

Or other surprises could be waiting, like the sensor.

Yeah. Pleasant thought.

Still, he wasn't expecting this place to pan out with anything. Stacy hadn't struck him as the type to write stuff out, and her stealing Kris's knife meant Stacy was far more desperate than she'd let on — which meant she was far more dangerous than they'd thought.

Poor kid. Poor, poor kid. Frank wanted to help; he couldn't just leave her here, knowing what was going on. He was solidly with Joe in that, but _how,_ that was the problem.

Dear God, please don't let Stacy use that knife before they figured something out.

He could hear Joe's and Kris's muffled voices below, tuned them out to pay better attention to whatever was upstairs. So far, the floor was solid, if on the creaky side. Frank eased to the first door, shone his flashlight in, jumped when the light reflected in myriad eyes: shelves of dolls, floor to ceiling, the old Victorian porcelain kind with life-like glass eyes and staring faces. Many had cracked heads, most with faded and yellowed dresses splattered with red — dye, it had to be — a few were babies, eerily life-like despite the cracked and broken ceramic.

Frank prided himself on not being easily spooked. But this had him shivering involuntarily. Old Gramma had a doll like this. She kept it in a rocking chair in her living room, and lately she'd been talking to it, calling it "Laura", their mother's name. She barely acknowledged anyone else save Frank and Joe, and then only to try to get them to talk to their 'mother', too.

He shut the door quickly, firmly.

Next room — here, what he'd expected. Plywood stacked neatly against one wall, paint cans, tarps. Boxes and crates. He wasn't about to open those; despite the weird taste in decor, Frank wasn't about to get accused of stealing by whoever owned this place. Breaking and entering — well, that was iffy, considering that the pressure sensor below had been active.

Outside, thunder cracked, then the house echoed with the sound of rain pelting the roof and windows. For a moment, Frank considered the room. So the place was being renovated. But a porch made to look as if it was falling apart, fake spiderwebs, creepy red-splattered dolls, a pressure sensor still active…

Mrs. Blaine had said something about 'devil's work' and 'pagan customs'.

…wait…

It couldn't be _that_ simple, could it?

Bayport Pentecostal had been up in arms this past month — they'd been agitating the mayor to forbid the high school from taking over the old Applegate farm for a Halloween haunted house. Some of their more vocal congregation had been proselytizing door-to-door with Jack Chick pamphlets on the 'pagan evils' of Halloween. They'd annoyed and harassed most of Bayport, enough that the Hardys and their friends were planning to stage a faked 'human sacrifice' as a revenge-prank during the Pentecostals' Sunday gathering next week — between Kris's knowledge of weird religion, Frank's research on theater tricks, and Phil Cohen's geeky tech…

Everything now clicked, fell into a pattern. That was it. It had to be. Those 'out of towners' were doing a haunted house.

…and Kris had been reading a tourist-trap pamphlet at the Circle Hills motel. _You'd be surprised what you can learn if you pay attention._

That little _rat._

Frank smiled. He wasn't going to say anything to Joe, either. If his brother couldn't figure it out, he deserved whatever freak-outs this place had — even better, if Frank could figure out some way to scare the daylights out of both his brother and their tagalong…

Oh, revenge for this stupid two AM jaunt would be so sweet.

Still, it didn't explain why the sensor was active, or why Stacy felt the place would protect her, or why the locals still felt the place was cursed. None of that made sense. Yet, anyway. It would, eventually, just like everything else did.

Next door, locked, and Frank wasn't about to force it. The last door, though, opened on another flight of stairs, heading up. Frank stopped, thought a moment — there had been windows at the attic level, outside. The garret rooms, then.

The sound of the rain on the roof grew louder, but there was other faint noise up there, soft sobs. Quietly, Frank eased up the stairs. The air was closed-in, smelling of old cardboard and damp wood, mildew, dust, and the sobs became woven with thumps and rummaging, and another, angry voice — male?

Kris said Stacy had mentioned someone called 'Allen'.

Frank peered up over the edge of the stairwell, into the garret. More stacked boxes, plywood, rusted trunks. A noose hung from the rafters, holding a ripped, red-splattered teddy bear directly over the stairs. Frank grinned up at it, then froze.

A man crouched over something hidden behind the trunks. He was an older man, maybe about Dad's age, hard square face, unwashed gray-hair and beard-stubble, threadbare, dirty clothes. He looked oddly familiar.

"Allen?" Frank said.

The man startled — then, snarling, rushed him.

Taken by surprise, Frank fell back. The man grabbed him, threw him hard into the wall, leaped down the stairs.

Frank recovered, staggered back up, then charged down the stairs after the man. No one innocent reacted like that, no one!

The man made it out the front door, cleared the porch. Rain was sheeting down again; lightning cracked across the sky in near-constant white-hot flashes. Frank skidded on the grass and mud, barely keeping the man in sight — between the night and the heavy rain, vision was almost nil, the man barely a shadow ahead.

The man made it through the iron gates, slipped on the wet muddy gravel, and Frank tackled him. Rock scraped across skin, mud splattered. The man struggled, kicked out, caught Frank in the chin, stunning Frank just enough. The man broke free, lashed out — Frank jerked back just in time, as glinting, sharp metal slashed him across the arm.

Well, he'd found Kris's Bowie knife…


	15. 40k cattle thundered down on the camp

_Author's note: YEAH, an update! Thanks to my main reviewers, SnowPrincess88, Jilsen, Leyapearl - you folks ROCK. Don't worry, this story is steam-rolling towards the end..._

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><p>###<p>

Kris yelled, as whatever it was _leaped — _

Dark, fast-moving, stinking of decay and rot — then Joe grabbed her, blocking whatever-it-was with his body, just as Kris thrust out with a spike of panicked mage-energy. Pathetic, weak, given her small mage-gift —

— oh god, they were going to die —

Icy-hot, blinding blue-white flashed. Both she and Joe fell hard against the wooden stairs as whatever-it-was hit the light with a sparking _crack_. It fell back, with a shriek that rang through the stone.

Both she and Joe twisted. Kris struggled to her elbows, as the thing hunched at the bottom of the stairs, gathered for another leap.

Panicking, she grabbed Joe's hand, reached _in _to his core with an instinctive yank of energy, pulling his Gift to meld with hers_— _

Suddenly her meager twenty-watt Gift jolted up a few thousand kilowatts, a flash of power that slammed into her and nearly blacked her out. Too much, way too much, Joe was only mage-Gifted, untrained and, worse, didn't believe in his own Gift — what the hell was going on?

Think _later._

Gasping, Kris threw the power out in another blinding flare of sparking, crackling blue-white — the thing barely checked itself, cowered back against the stone. More power slammed into her, wild and untamed — it _was_ coming from Joe, not just mage-Gift, something else, something that leaped into her core…

"_What —" _Joe started to pull from her grip.

"Don't!" Kris struggled to keep the Gift-link under control; it was like fighting waves after getting knocked off her feet by surf, struggling to get to the surface with lungs full of water and sand. Joe tried to pull away again, but she had his hand in a tight clench, raising both their hands up so that the sparking, crackling light surrounded them in a protective barrier, illuminating whatever the thing was below.

She heard Joe's breath hiss in. Snarling, the shadow crouched against the stone wall. It was a rotted mockery of a human being, tattered remains of a suit hanging from its torso, just enough of its face left to be recognizable. It reached for them, then jerked back, as if burnt.

"Try it again," Kris's voice didn't shake, much, "and we'll burn you good."

"This's the last time I let Frank get out of searching a basement." Joe breathed, gulping air.

"Don't let go," Kris whispered, felt his grip tighten on hers in response. She kept her gaze on the thing, frantically searching her memory, all the tales, all the stories, anything that might have a clue. Louder, "Who are you?"

It wasn't looking at her. It stared at Joe.

"Kris," Joe murmured, "we are in over our head. We're getting out of here. _Now."_

Kris didn't move. A man, definitely, from the build. From what remained of the suit, fairly modern, maybe within the last twenty years or so. And it was hungry — its hunger beat against her, hunger, anger, vengeance, focused and hot.

But who? _ Why?_

Its gaze still fixed on Joe, the thing crawled up the stairs, shied back when Kris raised her and Joe's hands again. Kris was starting to feel drained and sick — whatever the surge was, however Joe was doing it, it was going to cost them.

"There's a line," Joe said, his voice definitely shaking. "Going back there. Like a rope."

Startled, she blinked at him, then turned back. He was right. A faint, sullen-black line led from the thing off into the dark, further into the basement.

As if it was bound there.

Slowly, with her trembling free hand, Kris reached into her jacket pocket, drew out the salt. It was getting bolder, edging closer to the light, then snatched out, towards Joe —

Joe startled back, breaking the grip.

The light died. The thing leapt, snarling — and Kris hurled the salt full into its face. Another shriek rang through the basement, but Joe grabbed her, threw her up the stairs, slammed the door behind them just before they collapsed to the floor, panting, Kris fighting not to throw up.

Something slammed into the door from the basement-side, scrabbling at the wood, the knob turning —

Kris yanked the bottle of holy water from her pocket; her head was pounding, her vision blurring, but she smashed the bottle against the door, shattering it. Holy water splattered against the wood.

Another shriek from the other side. Shaking, Kris pulled up the last of her energy —

Joe grabbed her shoulders, as if to yank her away. _"Kris!"_

Another of that wild surge — Kris's hand glowed again, that same icy-blue, and she quickly scrawled on the basement door with the holy water, the first things that came to mind in her panic: the circled cross, a banishing pentagram, the Tetragrammaton, Alpha and Omega…

All glowing faint blue.

Silence from the other side of the door.

Joe backed away; the power dropped. Shaking, Kris staggered back, then, gulping hard, broke for the front door, barely made it to the edge of the porch before vomiting into the mud and grass.

Finally, there was nothing left to come up. Hands were on her again, helping her sit back. Joe pushed a mug of water into her hands. "I don't know how good it is. It's from the kitchen."

He'd braved going back through there — she took a mouthful, spat it out to get the taste of bile out of her mouth, then another mouthful, another spit. Her head was pounding again…

"We need to get Frank out," Joe's voice didn't shake at all. "Whatever that was —"

"Joe!"

That startled both of them. Frank was staggering up the hill towards them clutching his arm. Blood…

"Dear God." Joe jumped the stairs, helped his brother limp the final few feet to the porch. "Frank, what —"

"I found Allen," Frank said, from clenched teeth. "C'mon, I want to search the attic before he comes back. He was hiding something up there —" Then he finally _saw_ them: Kris sagging over the railing, Joe white-faced and shaken. "What happened to you two?"

"That's my question," Joe snapped. "Your arm!"

"I found the K-bar, too," Frank said. "It's fine, just a cut —"

There was no 'just' with a K-bar, period. That's why the Army used it. Frank's jacket wasn't blood-soaked, but it wasn't just a small cut, either. Despite the nausea and the migraine, Kris managed to get to her feet; if she could hook into whatever it was Joe had again, maybe her touch of Heal would be good for something…maybe this time she could convince Frank…

But Frank yanked away. "Seriously, tag, back off. You two are worse than Aunt Gertrude. C'mon — we're getting into that attic.


	16. Beneath murderous hooves, 2 men rolled

_Author's note: THANK YOU to Jilsen, SnowPrincess88, Fangirl69, unobtrusivescribe, Copagirl (from the Hardy Detective Agency) and to all the folks who have favorited & following this tale. You folks ROCK. I also apologize for the lateness of this update - I spent most of June in the hospital recovering from surgery, and it put a cramp in the writing for a bit. However, this tale is steam-rollering to the end - expect updates a lot faster now.  
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><p>No. Joe was not going to go back in that house. At this point, he didn't care if Frank had found Applegate's pirate treasure, several dozen jade Kwan Yins or another top-secret experimental military lab, <em>none<em> of that was worth encountering whatever-that-thing was again…

…or whatever Kris had done…

"Stop stalling, Joe," Frank snapped. "No, tag, you're _not_ staying out here. That man has your knife!"

It took a lot to get Frank worked up over something, but when he did, there wasn't any getting out of it. Joe leaned heavily against a support post, took a deep breath, then helped Kris up, let her lean on him as they stumbled after Frank. To his surprise, she didn't flinch away from the contact. Then again, she looked worse than Joe felt: pale, shaking, holding her hands over her eyes again, mouth a tight line of pain.

"Frank," Joe said, "let her go back out to the van."

Frank turned on the stair, finally took a good look at their tagalong. He hesitated, but shook his head. "No. We can't risk it. Kris, hang on just a few minutes."

"What is wrong with you?" Joe said. "Whatever's up there can wait."

"He had the K-bar," Frank said patiently. "Figure it out."

Stacy. Oh God.

"Guys." Soft, pained. "Don't yell. _Please."_

Joe and Frank exchanged a look. "Go on," Joe said to Kris, and pushed her ahead of him, the protected space between him and Frank. If whoever Frank was talking about came back, if that thing made it through the basement door, they'd have to go through Joe to get her.

Not that he'd be much good, the way he felt.

Kris had halted, leaning heavily against the railing and taking deep gulps of air. She'd gotten hit with the migraine right after she did…whatever…and Joe was feeling shaky, sick, unsteady on his feet, as if he'd been slammed up against the wall and punched in the gut by the whole Bayport High football team at once.

It had to do with that light. With whatever she'd done. Joe was sure of it.

But _what?_

Frank led them up the attic stairs, and Joe's attention was caught by a noose swinging gently over the staircase, complete with a gutted, red-splattered teddy bear — but at that point, trembling visibly and shaking her head, Kris slid to sit. "Go on," she whispered, when Frank tried to help her up. "I'll stay right here. In earshot."

"Top of the stairs." Frank hauled her up, helped her stagger the last few stairs. "Where we can see you."

"He's in big brother mode," Joe said. "Don't argue, tag."

Kris only nodded, sank back to sit, curled around her knees. It hurt to look at her.

The attic was stacked with boxes, crates, lumber, and…well…junk, and smelled of musty wood, mold, dust. "He was rummaging over here," Frank said, then stopped, held a hand up.

Silence, save for a faint shuffling noise, as if cloth sliding against wood, somewhere in all the junk. Silently Frank moved forward, gestured Joe around the nearest stack.

Joe rolled his eyes; his brother had to be joking. Stealth was completely blown by this point. Might as well try the direct approach. "Stacy?"

The two-by-four barely missed him.

He grabbed her arm before Stacy could recover from the swing and yanked her off-balance. Frank wrested the wood away from her, but Stacy twisted, broke free and scrabbled over to stand with her back against the opposite wall. She grabbed up a length of pipe, brandished it, staring both Frank and Joe down with wild, hunted eyes and tear-streaked face.

Dear God, what had that bastard done to her?

"Easy," Frank said, _"easy. _We're not going to hurt you —"

Movement caught Joe's eye, Kris bracing herself to her feet, watching him.

Memory was sharp, grape Kool-aid and a muddy kick-ball in an abandoned farmhouse. "Back down, Frank," Joe said quietly, pushing his brother back and letting his own stance relax, his hands palms-out towards Stacy, _calm-down, easy_. "Sorry —" That, to Stacy. "You startled us, that's all. We just came up here to find something to help you." Low, gentle, soothing. Joe tried for Mar's rhythm and tone, that never-broken calm that always convinced both brothers to confide, to tell, to trust, no matter what, no matter who. "Kris told us what's going on."

Stacy raised the pipe as Joe moved closer; he backed off immediately. But Stacy glared over at Kris. "You _told _them."

"Some things you shouldn't hide," Frank said, just as calm, just as gentle. "Hiding it just makes it worse."

"What do _you_ know about it?" Stacy spat. "Where's Allen? What'd you do to him?"

She was worried about that _tramp…?_

"He took the knife _you_ stole and nearly gutted Frank with it," Kris said coldly. "Then he ran off. So much for protecting you."

Stacy did _not_ need that attitude right now — but before Joe could snap at Kris to shut up, Frank's hand clamped on his shoulder, and Joe caught Frank's quick head-shake.

"We need to get out of here before he comes back," Frank said, and Stacy's attention swung back, the lead pipe lowered noticeably.

"Don't bother, Frank," Kris said. "She wants to kill you for helping her and trusts the bastards hurting her. She's too dumb to live."

_That —_ then Joe caught on, as Stacy's glare swung back on Kris: good cop, bad cop. "We're not going to take you back to your mother," Joe said. He edged closer, still holding his hands out, still keeping his voice soothing, calm, even; Stacy was looking at him again, the pipe lowering even more. "We're staying with the Walkers for the night. They won't mind another stray. We're sorry. We didn't know what was going on. We want to help."

And if they did object, well, Joe would deal with that himself, even if he had to ruin his allowance and get Stacy a room at the motel for the night.

Though beyond that…

He was close enough now, well within striking distance of that pipe, and right now, given how he felt, Joe wasn't sure he could avoid it if Stacy lashed out. Joe halted, but didn't try to take it, only held his hand out, waited.

Stacy stared into his face…then, suddenly, sagged.

Gently, Joe reached for the pipe. She let him take it, now not looking at him. It wasn't trust. It was surrender.

The realization shook him. Joe dared it, putting a hand, then an arm around her shoulders; Stacy was trembling badly, still not looking at him. Memory was sudden, painful, and Joe glanced up, caught Kris watching him again.

Surrender would have to do, for now. Trust…maybe, hopefully...later.

"At least she doesn't have any Kool-aid," Frank murmured, and Kris's mouth quirked.

"C'mon," Joe said quietly, to Stacy. "Let's get out of here. We'll worry about everything else in the morning."


	17. A left! A right hook!

_**Author's note: re-uploaded. slight correction to the chapter. **_

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><p>It made no sense, none of it.<p>

The Walkers hadn't been happy about them showing up with Stacy, but hadn't said anything, either, had taken Stacy in just as they had the Hardys and Kris. Sharon dragged Frank to the bathroom to clean the knife slash and wrap it in gauze and tape: thankfully, it wasn't deep enough to need stitches, though the hydrogen peroxide stung enough to seriously test Frank's control.

"I'll spare you the lecture." Tom watched from the doorway. "But you are not to go back to that house. Not with an armed man on the loose."

No argument, there. But it bugged Frank, nagging at the back of his brain, and it wouldn't shut up. The man had reacted to "Allen"; that had to be who Stacy meant, but Frank had seen the man before. He was certain of it. _Where_, though — that was the problem.

The inevitable, unsettling thought: it had to be something to do with some crime or something Dad was involved in, otherwise it wouldn't have caught Frank's attention. Some big crime. Something major.

Stacy was maddening. She refused to answer any questions about the man or even what she'd been doing at the house — the same wide-eyed frightened-silent she'd been at the sheriff's office — and Tom called a halt before Frank or Joe got much out. Tom had escorted Stacy back to the Winnie-the-Pooh bedroom, letting her bed down there, with a _look_ at Frank and Joe that said all too clearly to _leave her alone for now._

At that point, it was well after three A.M., but Frank was in no mood to sleep. By rights, he should be exhausted, but now…

Joe was already asleep, curled in the sleeping bag nearest the bay window. Kris wasn't in the house; she'd gone out to the front porch shortly after they'd gotten back.

Perfect for a private chat.

Frank went out onto the porch. The sky still sparked with brilliant lightning displays; more rain had swept in, yet another wave of storms. And Kris had fallen asleep on the porch swing.

Their tagalong and storms. It figured.

She startled awake the moment Frank got close, though Frank could've sworn he'd made no sound. She blinked at him for long seconds, obviously disoriented, then settled.

"You should come in," Frank said quietly, "in case Stacy's mom gets the bright idea of looking for her here."

"'M'fine." Kris struggled to sit up, then bent over her knees, head in her hands. "I'm gonna leave a permanent stash of meds in your van, I swear. I get more of this crap with you two…"

"Blame Joe for this round, not me." _That _earned Frank an odd look, but he ignored it, sat down next to her when she finally scooted over to make room. "About Stacy —"

Kris sighed. "You're not going to get any more out of her." Quiet, resigned. "The moment Joe told her about your dad being a detective…" She stared at her hands. "Cops aren't good for nothing but dragging you back where you don't want to go."

Frank nodded. He'd known it was a mistake the moment Joe had said it. The brothers were so used to Dad that it was hard to remember that others didn't see him the same way; it'd taken Kris a few months before she'd finally relaxed enough to even stay in the same room as Fenton — Dad's penchant for telling fascinating stories about his detective work had been the major factor, there.

Well, done was done. "I was hoping you could talk to her. Find out who Allen is. Anything we can use to help her."

Kris looked away. "You and Joe. You both want to be such knights-in-shining-armor, but you're forgetting — a little girl's in the hospital because of Stacy."

"Because of a car wreck."

"Frank, come on. You really think that mob was chasing her for nothing?"

"You have proof?" Frank kept his voice even. Calm.

Kris didn't answer.

"She's a scapegoat, tag." Frank couldn't understand it; he'd thought Kris would be more sympathetic to another abused kid. "You heard her mom, all that about Stacy being an 'abomination'."

"Yeah," Kris said softly. "I did."

"If Mrs. Blaine's part of a church, that means others think like her, too." Frank had to get Kris thinking it through; they needed her help in this. One abused kid would know how to deal with another. At least, better than Frank did. "Just because 'everyone' says Stacy did it doesn't mean 'everyone' is right."

Kris looked away again. "I wish I had your faith."

So did he, but Frank wasn't about to condemn anyone, let alone Stacy, on nothing more than a lynch mob's rage. "Dad says it. Be sure of your facts before you judge. And we don't have them."

Long, long silence.

"I'll try," Kris said finally. "That's all I can promise."

"That's all I ask, tag," Frank said.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, though Frank woke around seven. He'd over-slept; he wanted to get out before anyone else woke up, before Tom Walker could ask for more details about last night. Let Kris handle that part — Frank's small revenge for last night's two A.M. jaunt.

Frank planned to do what he usually did when something didn't make sense: hit the library. Though for what, exactly, he had no idea.

The second part of his revenge: he shoved Joe awake twice, then finally hauled his brother upright and shook him until Joe yelped in protest. Joe still spent a good two minutes just blinking at Frank, until an ice cube tray dumped in the sleeping bag finally got Joe moving.

Next, spread the pain around, since Phil and Chet's camera project were why Frank had ended up out here to start with. And thanks to them not being prepared cash-wise to get stranded, the greasy-spoon-diner breakfast was definitely light, much to Chet's disappointment, though heavy on the coffee for Joe, who spent the meal getting nudged awake by Phil and Frank.

"That guy you chased," Joe said, and yawned. "You'd recognize him again if you saw him?"

Even half-awake, Joe wouldn't let go of a mystery, either. Frank nodded. "I think so. I know him from somewhere, Joe. I know it."

"I'd recognize someone, too, if they took a knife to me," Phil drawled.

"I'd be running the other way," Chet added. "He wants left alone, leave him alone."

"Someone you saw on television, maybe," Joe said to Frank. "On the news."

"Forget it, Chet," Phil said. "Common sense versus a mystery? Mystery wins with these two. Especially when a girl's involved."

Frank ignored that, thinking. He wasn't much of a TV watcher. "It wasn't television…no. In the newspaper. I've seen that face before in the newspaper. Some crime." He looked up at Joe. "I think it had something to do with Circle Hills."

"Naturally," Phil muttered. "Lay your bets. Murder, bank robbery, kidnapping, or blackmail?"

"All four," Chet said. "And two pizzas, with everything."

"My vote's for another lynch mob," Joe said dryly. "I'm in. Heavy on the cheese and mushrooms."

Luckily, Circle Hills had a library…and a full collection of back editions of not only its newspaper, but also the Boston Globe, Times, and Tribune. And, thankfully, offered free coffee as a courtesy to its guests.

"Hardy," Phil shoved himself back in his chair, "it'd help if you told us what we're looking for. Or even _when._ 'Some crime in Circle Hills' doesn't cut it."

They'd been in the media room over an hour already. Frank and Joe had taken over the Circle Hills Gazette archives, leaving the Boston papers to Phil and Chet. They'd agreed to help the brothers search the archives, but couldn't stay — Phil's cousin had his bar mitzvah today; Chet had obligations on his parents' farm.

"For a sleepy little town, they sure know how to fill up a paper." Frank rubbed at his temples. The lines of print were starting to blur together.

"Some of it's almost interesting." Joe stretched, downed another half of a styrofoam cup of coffee in one gulp. "Oh, come off it, Phil, this place doesn't have much going on. Whatever it is should stick out."

"Joe, _meshuggeneh,_" Phil drawled, "that is the over-statement of the century. This'd better be some chick you're after."

"The tagalong's dealing with Stacy." Frank paged through another paper. Nothing, nothing, and nothing.

"Oh?" Phil slanted a sly glance at Joe. "She guarding the chick from you? Or guarding you from her?"

"Considering said chick almost nailed him with a two by four," Frank said absently, "your guess is as good as mine."

"That's a tactic Iola hasn't tried yet," Chet murmured.

"Phil's right," Joe said, to Frank. "It'd help if we knew what we were looking for. Only thing for the last few years has been a couple runaways."

"A face," Frank said. "A face I've seen before. I think we've gone back too far, Joe. It was more recent — no, wait."

"What?" Joe pushed away from the filing cabinet, set the next stack of papers down. "What is it?"

Frank smoothed the paper out carefully; it was yellowed and musty, seventeen years old. "This is it. It's our man." The headline was huge: _Jackson Bank Robbed of Half-Million Dollars. _Under it: _Two Thieves Caught In Circle Hills, Wood Still At Large. _Dead-center the front page was a picture of two men in handcuffs being escorted by the police. "Saturday, August 12, 1959…"

"Bank robbery," Phil muttered. "Called that one."

"You couldn't have seen this," Joe said to Frank. "You were a baby. I wasn't even _born…"_

"Don't you remember? They reviewed the case last year. It was in all the papers. They paroled this one, Allen Tremaine — Joe?"

His brother leaned heavily on the table, staring at the paper.

"Joe?" Frank said again.

"Who…" Joe's voice cracked; he swallowed, touched a picture off to the side of the main article. "Who's this?"

Frank glanced; that had sounded definitely _rattled._ "Ed Wood. Three men involved, but they never found him. They assumed he made off with the money."

Joe bowed his head. "I think I know what happened to him." So low, Frank barely heard it.

"You_ do?"_

Joe didn't answer for a long moment. Finally, "And the third guy?"

"Paul Denham. Died in prison. He confessed to masterminding the whole thing — wait, _Denham? _ That's what they called the house, Denham House…" Frank eyed his brother. "Are you all right?"

"So they never found the money, either," Joe murmured.

Phil now stood behind Frank, arms crossed, eyeing the article. "You mean this little mystery of yours might actually be profitable, for a change?"

"That'll be a first," Chet said.

"You said Allen was hiding something up in that attic," Joe said to Frank. "But that makes no sense — wait." Joe pulled the paper further onto the table. "Frank…"

Joe had laid his hand on another article — another runaway. Frank scanned through it. Nothing special, no real information, though he felt a moment's sympathy, knowing what had caused Kris to run from her original parents. "So?"

Shaking his head, Joe dug through the stack he'd been searching, pulled out two other papers. "Look at these. At the pictures."

Black and white pictures, all the articles told more or less the same tale. Two more runaways, missing girls, no contact with family since. The last was just over two years ago, the other disappearance about seven years past. Frank sighed; even for Joe, this was too obvious a topic change. Joe was dodging something. "Joe, this has nothing to do with Allen. He was in jail —"

"No. _Look at them._" Joe laid the articles and pictures side by side. "Remind you of anyone?"

All female teens, all blonde, all definitely pretty, all looking very young, younger than their age — then Frank's breath hissed in. "Dear God."

"Three runaways, from this little town," Joe said. "What if Stacy's not Mann's first?"

Worse, the way Mann had been watching Kris. Kris fit the type, too, barring the 'pretty' part; her being on the small side, it was sometimes hard to believe that she was in the same year as Joe.

And Mann had wanted her to stay…

"Mann?" Phil said.

Frank and Joe exchanged a look. They hadn't told Phil or Chet everything, just about the wreck Stacy was blamed for and her claims of seeing it before it happened; Phil and Chet didn't know about Kris's past, and Frank didn't want to violate Stacy's privacy, either, unless it was absolutely necessary. "Stacy's doctor," Frank said. "We think he's involved more than he's letting on."

"He's known for helping 'unruly' kids," Joe said quietly.

"And possessed ones," Frank said. With a frustrated sigh, he slumped back in the chair, staring at the papers and articles, bank robbers and runaways both. More complication. Just what they needed. If Joe was right, anyway.

Finding those girls after all this time: chances slim to none. Dad had taken many missing person cases over the years; it was horrible to see the parents' faces, the desperate hope that Fenton tried to gently dissuade. The longer a person was gone, the less the chance of the person being alive. The parents never believed Dad, never lost that hope…

"Possessed?" Phil said incredulously. "You mean, like the Exorcist?" He shook his head slowly. "Hardy, you've officially snapped. You're believing all the crap your tagalong puts out."

"Possession wasn't on the betting list," Chet grumbled.

"It's still not," Frank said. "Your pizza's safe." Then he straightened. "Joe…Mann's quoted in all these articles. Look."

The quotes weren't good, either: the runaway girls were rebellious, troubled, at odds with their families —

"— not responding well to treatment," Joe read, from the earliest one. His hand tightened on the paper. "That's what he said about Stacy."

Now what? _Now_ what? Suspicion wasn't enough, especially since Stacy wasn't talking. They needed proof. The law, the sheriff would need more than just a couple strangers' suspicion…

…but how did the bank robbery fit in?

Scratch that. Frank could guess: a criminal, released on parole and living like a tramp in an abandoned house, when a pretty girl like Stacy came in… Frank shuddered, buried his head in his hands, trying to think.

'_Complicated'_ was now a distinct understatement.

"There was something Stacy said," Joe said. "Something…when she was taking us to that house. I asked her who lived there, she said 'the dead'. I thought she was just being spooky, but…"

"Maybe she meant it literally," Frank said. But why did she think the house would protect her, then? That made no sense.

"Oh, come on," Phil broke in. "Only you two can take a doctor seeing the same people in _this_ small town and make a murder out of it."

"Bank robbery, murder, kidnapping," Chet said. "That's three out of four."

"If Stacy knew," Joe said, to Frank, "or she found out…"

"And she won't talk."

"Mann would have records," Joe said. "Medical records, at least." He bowed his head, hands clenched, and Frank knew why: all the books they'd read, back when Dad had explained about Kris. All those nightmare-inducing stories. "Maybe others."

Frank had never seen Joe look so grim. "Y'know," Frank said carefully, "that knife cut was really deep. I probably should see a doctor for it."

Joe's gaze met his. "I was just about to suggest it."

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><p><strong><em>As everyone else here says, feed the muse with reviews. :)<em>**


	18. A right & a left!

**_(edit: thanks to RobinLinn for catching an issue with the thorazine amounts!)_**

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><p>)()()()()()()()()()<p>

A huge dose of charm to the elderly librarian later — Frank rolled his eyes at that, but Joe only let his grin widen and cranked the charm up even more — they found that Mann lived just down the street from the library, his office in his house. Easy enough to leave the van in the library parking lot and walk.

"I'm shocked," Frank said. "You do have a way with girls. Too bad it's only with the ones older'n Aunt Gertrude."

"Yeah, right. I saw you with Callie." Joe slanted a sly grin. "She's _ancient."_ Callie had graduated last year, after all, with a real job helping Dad.

"The word is _experienced._ Something you wouldn't know about —" Grinning, Frank dodged Joe's mock-punch.

The plan was for Frank to keep the doctor busy while Joe searched the house. Giving Frank that part, though, meant that Joe had time to think about everything else. _I've given Stacy her thorazine and locked her in her room, _Mann had said. The "locked in her room" part was scary enough. But why thorazine, for someone who wasn't schizophrenic?

Worse, the house. That…thing. Joe had gotten too close a look at it last night; seeing the un-rotted face staring up at him from the newspaper gave him no way to deny it: not hallucination, not lack of sleep, nothing. He hadn't told Frank about it. Joe had no clue what to tell his brother, not without sounding like a total lunatic.

But keeping silent — that didn't sit right, either. Not from Frank. Not from his _brother._

Mann's house was a neat, blue-gray two-story with glass-block windows set in the foundation, an old-style canal house right next door to the Blaines; the walk was lined with rain-sodden chrysanthemums and asters and the front door bore a dignified brass plate engraved with "Dr. Forrest Mann, MD". No car in the driveway or on the street. Shoving his hands into his jacket pocket, Joe watched the street as Frank tried the doorbell, then knocked.

No answer.

"Wonderful," Joe said. They hadn't planned for this part — he could hear Dad now: _plan for the unexpected._

"Back door," Frank said. "C'mon."

_Back _door? "Oh no. _No._ We are _not —"_

"You want to help Stacy or not?"

Helping was one thing, breaking and entering something else entirely, especially if they got caught. A felony record would sink any hope of being detectives. A couple out-of-town teens versus a respected doctor in an insular small town — Joe knew exactly how that would go, even without Sheriff Hollister's tirade last night.

But that would let Mann get away with it.

Then again, Dad had snuck into many places in the course of his job. _You have to choose what's right, _he'd told them, _and what's worth the consequences._ Surely this was the type of situation Dad meant: they were after a molester, after all, and a possible murderer —

— for whom Stacy was likely next in line.

Screw the felony record. Joe ran to catch up.

"So much for 'where you lead, I will follow'," Frank said dryly.

"Yeah, well, my older brother's never wanted to break the law before," Joe snapped, in a low, low voice.

"We're just going to see if the good doctor's out back gardening or something. My arm really hurts." Calm, casual.

Uh-huh. Joe kept a nervous, wary eye on the surrounding yards: no one outdoors, yet. That he could see, anyway. The yard squelched with every step, and the back porch looked normal enough, hardly that of someone who'd probably murdered three girls. Tubular wind-chimes that rang in precise B-flat chords dangled from the support beams; a cast-iron patio table with three green- and white-woven lawn chairs around it stood near a gleaming steel charcoal grill. A old rusted shovel leaned by the door, muddy boots on a low rack next to it. It looked so…so…_normal._

Perfectly calm, perfectly nonchalant, Frank went right up to the back door…

…and simply opened it.

"Small town," Frank said airily.

Joe sighed. Aunt Gertrude had been the same way after she'd moved in. She'd never locked the back door, despite numerous warnings from Dad — until someone _had_ broken in and tossed Dad's office while the Hardys slept. Dad then had to deal both with Aunt Gertrude's lectures about why he should have a regular non-dangerous job like everyone else _and_ with his two over-excited boys who kept trying to dust for fingerprints.

The brothers slipped in; Joe wiped the doorknob with his shirt, then turned. They stood in a painfully clean kitchen that screamed _Better Homes & Gardens_: dark orange walls, shiny avocado-green appliances, cabinets stained deep oak, a hideous red-orange striped shag rug, and — Joe had to look twice, to make sure he wasn't imagining it — Shrinky-Dink sun-catchers in the window over the sink. One of the larger ones was a yellow _Have-a-nice-day_ face with 'for Dr. Mann' inscribed under it.

Dear God, Mann had other young kids as patients…?

"Dr. Mann?" Frank called into the house.

No answer, no sound.

"Maybe it's his golf day," Joe said.

They eased cautiously through the house. A door under the stairs was locked; basement, most likely. The living room had been converted to waiting and reception area (orange pleather, red shag, stone fireplace with a large string-art sailboat over the mantle). Another door off the living room led to the leather-chaired and oak-paneled office and sterile white exam rooms — with filing cabinets. The rooms smelled strongly of antiseptic and bleach.

"Bingo," Frank said softly.

"I don't think he'll have written 'killed her' in the file," Joe said, as they started searching the filing cabinets. It didn't take long to find not only Stacy's, but the three runaways'…but looking through them yielded nothing. Joe couldn't make heads or tails out of most of the information, and Mann's handwriting was _horrible._

"Look." Frank pulled one sheet out of the earliest runway's file. "Thorazine. 25 mg twice a day…injection…"

Joe took a look at the sheet, then riffled the file he was looking at until he found a similar sheet: the last runaway from two years ago. They'd just started metric conversions in his chemistry class: 25 mg was less than a tenth of a cubic centimeter, so it didn't sound like much, but… "Same here. Only once a day, though. So is that too much?"

"No idea," Frank murmured, studying another sheet on the third runaway, then for Stacy's. "Same for these — Stacy's once a day."

"All four," Joe said. "That's an awful lot of crazy girls for this little town." On a hunch, he pulled another file — the little girl that'd been hurt in the wreck, Jenny Stevens…and Joe's heart froze.

_Thorazine recommended._

"My God," Frank whispered. "Eight years old. And Mann started treating Stacy when she was —"

"— eight," Joe finished with him.

Frank stared at the papers. "I remember the article on that drug." Quiet. Controlled. Too controlled — Joe could hear the anger under his brother's voice. "They called thorazine a drug lobotomy. It makes people docile. Easy to control." Now Frank looked up. "And it messes with memory."

Joe's fist clenched on top of the papers. He didn't want to say it. He hated saying it. "You know what Dad would say: prescribing a drug isn't proof of anything. We don't even know the girls are dead. We're just assuming."

"I know." Frank started to shove the files back into their folders, then stopped, Stacy's sheet in hand. "Joe, look at this. 'Patient refusing medication'. That's yesterday."

The date on Jenny Stevens' sheet was a couple days ago. "Frank…what if Stacy found out? What if she _knew…?"_

"And if Mann found out she knew," Frank said grimly.

Silence fell. _'Not responding well to treatment lately'._ Joe's jaw clenched. No more. It'd end today, if he had anything to do with it.

"C'mon," Frank said finally. "Rest of the house. There has to be something. There has to be."

Passing back through the living-room-turned-reception-area, Joe stopped at the locked door. A locked door, inside a house. Granted, maybe Mann just didn't want patients wandering into other areas, but… "Frank."

Frank laid his hand against the door, looked up at the stairs, then at Joe. "Basement, I'll bet." His tone turned innocent. "The doctor might've accidentally locked himself down there. He could have fallen and gotten hurt."

Joe managed a thin smile. "I knew you'd see it my way."

Using his new driver's license to pop the lock — not exactly the way Joe had envisioned breaking his license in. Definitely a better story, though; he could imagine the reaction of a couple girls in his class. Being a detective was cool, dangerous…

…sickening.

They both froze at the bottom of the wooden basement stairs. A dimly lit, finished room that looked somewhat like another examination room…

Joe turned away, swallowing hard. He didn't want to know what all that stuff was. Or why the exam table was built like _that_. He definitely did not want to examine the Polaroids on the cork-board.

"We're getting the sheriff." Frank's voice shook; he'd gone a few steps closer to the cork-board, then had spun away. "And I don't care about any felony charges."

The ceiling creaked.

Joe recovered first, made it up the stairs as quietly as his pounding heart and suddenly-shaking legs would allow, and hit the light switch, plunging the basement into near-total darkness. Then he slid back down the stairs, staggered — blinded by the light change, he couldn't see where to go, where to hide —

Frank grabbed him and pulled him against the cold concrete wall in the hollow under the wooden stairs. Together they waited, listening, staring at the ceiling. The creaky footsteps crossed the house from front to back, then sounded as if they climbed the stairs, then silence.

Joe's eyes adjusted enough to see the stairs, the faint light from under the door-crack and the glass-block windows illuminating the space in gray light and deep shadow.

Enough to see the metal exam table, with the padlocks…

"Please, God, don't let him settle in to watch golf," Frank breathed.

The ceiling creaked again, directly above them, as if coming down the stairs, then right to the basement door, followed by the jingly scrape of keys and the doorknob turning. Light flooded the basement again; Dr. Mann was humming tunelessly as he clomped down.

Oh God, there was no excuse for them being down here. With those incriminating life-destroying photos right there, in plain view of the Hardys, Mann — molester, possible murderer — was not going to react well.

Joe glanced at his brother — and as one, they reached through the wood slats, grabbed the doctor's ankles just as he was mid-step, and yanked, dragging Mann's feet through the space between the steps.

With a yell, Mann slammed face- and chest-first against the stairs.

Frank shoved Joe ahead of him and they fled up the stairs — dodging Mann's wheezing, weak flailing — and Joe slammed the basement door shut, grabbed a chair and shoved it under the doorknob. It wouldn't hold, wrong side, but maybe Mann would stumble over it, maybe it'd delay him —

Frank yanked Joe to a halt just outside the front door. _"Walk,"_ Frank growled. "Don't run. Like Dad says."

_People notice running; act like you have every right to be there._ It took everything Joe had to hold himself to a shaky, if fast, walk next to his brother, back down the street to their van, until Joe finally collapsed into the van's passenger seat.

Mann hadn't followed. There'd been no pursuit.

"We can't go to the sheriff." Panic made Joe's breath come short; unlawful entry had just escalated to assault, even if it was against a possible murderer. "He'll have time to destroy evidence. Then _he'll_ call the sheriff. Hollister won't believe us, and if Mann saw our faces —"

"I know, I _know."_ Frank bowed his head, breathed out heavily, then started the van up, pulled out of the library parking lot. His grip on the steering wheel was white-knuckled. "We can't go back to the Walkers. Mrs. Blaine knows Kris was with them, and I'm not risking Mrs. Walker — wait. The house!"

"The _house?"_

"What you said, in the library. That Stacy said the dead lived there. I wondered if she meant it literally —"

Joe straightened. "And we saw something in the trees."

"Something," Frank said, "or some-_one._ Someone who didn't want to be seen, but wanted to see who was messing with the house. Maybe even watching for Stacy. It couldn't have been Allen — he was in the attic." He grinned weakly at Joe. "It definitely wasn't puckwudgies."

Joe swallowed, hard. "Frank…Mann's porch. There was a shovel. And boots. The mud was still fresh. But all he had was lawn. No garden."

They'd turned onto 28; Frank said nothing for a long moment. "You bring your camera, by any chance?"

If they got out of this, if they pulled this off without ending up locked away in juvenile detention, they were going to make some type of detective kit to keep in the van at all times, no matter what. Joe shook his head, pointed out the turn-off just as Frank almost drove past. "But Mann couldn't have been out here. There wasn't another car last night. He wouldn't have walked all the way out here."

Frank pulled up next to the squat boarded-up building at the base of the hill, around the first bend. "Maybe he didn't."

They got out. There, clear and water-filled in the muddy ground, fresh tire tracks ran along the far side of the building. Joe stopped at the corner, noted how far back the tracks went: almost fully in the trees. They would've missed anything back there last night; they'd focused on the big spooky house, not this shack.

"Phil was parked here." Frank thumped the van. "So those aren't his. And the mob was up at the house."

Keeping to the grassy verge, Joe followed the tire tracks until they stopped: more settled, deeper. The car had parked here, and clear, definite boot prints led off into the trees, up the hill towards the house. "Follow those?"

"I don't want to mess up evidence if we can avoid it," Frank said. "Let's see if we can pick it up from where you saw him. Triangulate back."

But another shock waited at the gates — another car, a red Jeep CJ that Joe recognized from last night, when he'd picked Kris up. "That's the Walkers. What are they doing here?"

"If Kris fed them one of her stories," Frank said, with gritted teeth, "we're going to lock her in the lab with Aunt Gertrude when we get home. With a bucket of Pine-sol and a toothbrush."

One of Kris's stories…

Oh dear God. She couldn't have. They wouldn't be…

Up on the hill, Tom Walker stood in the doorway; he raised a hand in acknowledgement as the Hardys got out of their van. They gave their own half-waves back, but Frank jerked his head towards the trees. "Ours first. Where'd you see it at?"

Joe stared up at Tom Walker. What was he doing here? He couldn't have believed a story about a monster in a basement. Even if this was about the man that nailed Frank with the K-bar, Tom was only a business associate, a corporate suit. It wasn't Tom's responsibility…

…was it?

Was he?

"Joe?"

Joe turned away. Something else to figure out later. "This way."

They skirted the outside of the iron fence, past the scorched saplings; the air was thick with the stench of damp burnt wood. Joe kept glancing towards the house, trying to figure out the approximate angle and how many sections of iron fence — three, four?

"About here, I think," Joe said finally, "but further in." Frank right behind him, Joe slipped through the undergrowth, long grass, and dead brush, gauging distance from the house. Whatever it was had been close enough to watch — he stopped himself just in time. "Here!"

Broken twigs, bent grass, more footprints filled with muddy rainwater, a visible, obvious trail going back into the trees. Clear enough. Frank gave him a slight push, and they split apart to either side of the track as they followed it back, stepping carefully to avoid ruining the trail and potential evidence.

"He didn't care about hiding it, that's for sure," Frank murmured.

"Why bother? Someone sees anything, they'll think it's the ghosts."

"Possessed Hill. You're right." Frank smiled slightly. "Y'know, for a younger brother, you're pretty useful after all — holy _sh—_"

Frank's curse cut off; both brothers froze. They'd broken through a clump of trees and tangled brush into a small clearing.

A large mound of mud, next to a deep, body-long hole.

"Joe, look. There." Frank sounded calm enough. "You can just see it." He pointed a few feet to the right of the hole: a slight depression in the mud, also about body-long.

As if the dirt had settled around something buried there.

"Must be the last one," Joe said. God, how could _he_ sound so calm? Frank was the cool objective one, not him. Joe forced himself to breathe; reading about the effect in a forensic text was one thing, but seeing it was too personal, too real after seeing those pretty faces in the paper. "Ground would've worn down around the other two."

"As a dog returneth to his vomit," Frank said quietly. "We tell Tom. We get them out of here, then go to the sheriff. Or the state patrol, if the sheriff won't listen. Or —"

Far too loud in the quiet forest: tires on gravel and mud, a car engine. It sounded as if it pulled up, beyond the trees, near the gates, near their van.

Okay. Panic would only get them killed. Frank had turned, stared towards the sound; Joe grabbed Frank's arm, pulled him around a clump trees on the far side. Not much cover, but it only had to last just long enough. As long as whoever it was didn't spot the brothers' very obvious trail, he and Frank could jump, get the drop on the killer, take him out…

The brothers waited, pressed against the rough, damp bark; Frank breathed something that Joe didn't catch: prayer or curse, it didn't matter. Joe listened hard for something, anything — the ground was too sodden for quiet movement, the brush too thick. They'd surely hear. They'd know.

The expected noise rang out, piercing, sharp —

— from the direction of the house.

Gunshots.


	19. an uppercut to the jaw!

_**Thanks for the reviews & comments: Laura (who called it right about Kris), RobinLinn (good catch on the thorazine! It got corrected), Jen, Jilsen, and TeamWhoeverHitBellaWithTheCa r. This chapter is dedicated to the person on the Hardy Detective Agency Forum who stated that she only liked OCs when they met bloody ends...muahahahahaha.**_

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><p>Kris woke in a tangle of blanket and uneasy dreams.<p>

Alone in the Walkers' living room. She had a vague memory of Frank and Joe arguing (Joe's side consisting mostly of "What are you _doing?!_ I'm _sleeping!"_), then the van engine starting up. Whatever it'd been about, it could wait; she wanted a shower and breakfast.

What she didn't expect was Tom Walker sitting at the kitchen table when she came out of the bathroom. He did not look happy.

"Sit down," Tom said quietly.

Uh-oh. "Tom, about last night…"

"I don't appreciate having my hospitality abused," Tom said. "No, I'm not talking about Stacy. Bringing her here was the smartest thing you three did last night. Now, trainee, the whole story. What you couldn't say before."

Tom insisted on going back to the start of the fiasco, as thorough a questioning as anything Fenton or Mar ever did. Tom listened and Tom skewered any equivocation, getting everything she'd skated around the first time due to Frank and Joe being there; Tom was another jack, just as she was, but he was an experienced Blade from NYC, one of the roughest Centers the Association had.

"If I could," Tom said finally, "you'd be back in Bayport right now, with my recommendation that you be pulled from the Blades and not allowed to continue. Not for another year, at least."

"_What?"_ She couldn't have heard that. Not after everything — she'd tried, she'd done her best —

"Tell me, trainee." Deceptively calm, even. "What's your biggest mistake in all this?"

_The whole night_, Kris wanted to say. "I…I held information back. I should've told them Stacy was faking. And about the VFW. I nearly got them killed because Joe wanted —"

"Joe made his own choice. As for Stacy faking, we'll get to that. Try again." Tom waited, then when Kris didn't answer, "Let's go at this another way. When Stacy jumped out in front of the van, what was your reaction?"

Just thinking about it… "Tom, she almost got us _killed. _ She dragged us into that lynch mob!"

"A scared girl," Tom overrode her, "running for her life from angry idiots with guns. Scared enough, desperate enough to jump in front of a moving car. It could've been anyone in that car — even someone else wanting to kill her. Instead, she got Joe. And you."

"_She lied to us._ She made out she was Gifted, when she'd nearly killed Jenny! She was _proud_ of it!"

"Was she?"

What part of this was Tom not getting? _"She was thinking it. _ She sliced Grant's brakes —"

"You went in her head." Not quite an accusation.

Doing that outside of a life-or-death emergency was a huge violation of Association ethics. "_No. _My meds kill my shields."

"Okay." Tom's voice warmed, just a little. "We'll work with you on that, then. But _she's_ on meds, too." His expression was grim. "What I know of thorazine isn't good."

"But she still —"

"You," Tom cut her off, "judged someone without knowing the full story. Without compassion. You've allowed anger and arrogance to get in the way of business, trainee."

That caught Kris speechless. Frank had said something like this last night. She'd blown him off; he wasn't Gifted, he had no way to know —

…_arrogance…_

Tom's gaze leveled on her. "You could've offered a hand, drawn her out. Instead, you accuse her, yell at her, call her names. Now she won't talk, tries to bolt the van, almost nails Joe with a lead pipe, Frank gets knifed with your K-bar — eye for an eye leaves everyone blind, trainee. You've blinded Stacy. You've blinded yourself."

Shaking, jaw clenched, Kris blinked back hot, angry tears. This wasn't fair. It wasn't. _"So it's okay that Jenny's in ICU?"_

"You're still not listening," Tom said. "No, it's not okay. But did you once ask yourself _why_ Stacy sliced Grant's brakes?" He paused, then raised his voice just a hair, though his tone was casual, gentle. "Come on in, Stacy."

Arms crossed, sullen, Stacy slouched in, but stopped in the doorway, glaring at Kris.

"Hungry?" Tom got to his feet. "I can manage scrambled eggs. Or Cheerios, if you don't want to risk food poisoning." When Stacy didn't answer, Tom pulled the Cheerios down from the top of the fridge, set the box on the table with three bowls, bananas, and the milk. "Sorry about the room. My wife seems to think she can't have a baby without a lot of Pooh involved."

"He wanted Tigger," Sharon said, coming in. "But that would give the baby too many bad ideas. Morning, girls. Where's the other two?"

"I saw them leave," Tom said. "Hopefully they've got sense not go back to that house."

Fighting for calm, Kris breathed out, remembering what little had filtered through her half-awake state. "Frank said something about the library."

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Bit on the gung-ho side, there, isn't he?"

It was what Frank did whenever something didn't make sense: he worked at it until it _did_. Kris sometimes suspected that he and Joe'd become friends with her just so Frank could get at Mar's library: odd science, obscure history, cultural studies, science fiction, mystery — complete collections of Christie, Doyle, and Gardner had kept them all occupied for weeks — several different encyclopedia series, etc. Tons of "etc.", for that matter.

Stacy had gotten a bowl of Cheerios, no milk, two bananas. She didn't look up.

"Well, that allows us to talk freely, anyway." Tom tapped the table in front of Stacy. "Level, kiddo. How much of our chat did you hear?"

Shrugging, Stacy focused on her cereal.

"Most of it," Sharon said quietly. "At least from the bit about the thing in the basement. I was behind you, dear." That, to Stacy. "You didn't even realize I was there."

Kris kept her own gaze down. She could feel Tom's stare.

"We have to deal with whatever it is," Tom said. "Especially if it's corporeal enough to attack like that." His mind-voice was a sharp jab. _:Apologize to her, trainee. There's business.:_

No. No matter what Tom said, there was still a little eight-year-old girl badly hurt because of Stacy. "Tom, that thing went for Joe. And Joe did something —"

_:Apologize.:_

"_No!"_ Kris shoved to her feet. _"I'm not going to apologize!_ She almost killed Jenny! _She_ sliced the brakes, she _knew _Jenny got hurt, _and She. Was. Proud._ _Of. It!_ If that means you bounce me from the Blades — I don't _care, _you're backing a _killer!"_

Silence settled.

"He told me to." Small, shaken.

"_What?"_

"_Kris,"_ Tom said, then, gently, to Stacy, "Who told you to?"

White-faced, trembling, Stacy focused back on her cereal. "Doctor Mann." A bare whisper.

"That makes no _sense!" _Kris burst out. But last night's conversation — Stacy's thoughts of Mann watching Jenny, Stacy's words: _He said he'd tell Mama and she'd lock me away at Danvers._

But that still didn't…oh god.

"Jenny wasn't the target, was she?" Tom said.

Stacy shook her head.

Then it hit. _"Grant,"_ Kris whispered.

Total, complete silence.

"That's how predators work," Tom said quietly, to Kris. "They gain trust. They worm their way into the kid's life by befriending the parents. A _missing_ parent is a golden opportunity."

"How old are you, dear?" Sharon said, to Stacy. "Seventeen, eighteen?"

"Eighteen." Sullen.

Sharon and Tom exchanged a look. "Maybe it hasn't occurred to you," Tom said, "but you're a legal adult, kiddo. You don't have to go home. We can put you up a couple days while we help you find options." His voice went grim. "And if Mann tries anything _here,_ he'll find out what being raised in South Bronx means."

"You believe me?" Stacy raised her head.

"You heard their talk." Sharon nodded at Kris and Tom. "Just between them, so you know it was truth. Believe me, we knowyou're telling the truth."

Kris swallowed, trying to get her anger and shame under control. "You tried to warn Grant. That prediction — but all those other accidents…"

Stacy looked from Tom to Sharon, then bowed her head. "He…he wanted excuses to see the kids. Jenny was my friend. I didn't want —" Her voice broke, then, fierce, angry, _"He can't touch her now."_

At that, Kris couldn't take anymore. She pushed away from the table and out the front door. There she had to stop; her legs wouldn't hold her. She collapsed to the porch steps, head in her hands.

Joe had told her, Frank had told her: _mobs don't have proof, be sure of your facts._ She'd ignored them; she'd been so sure of her Gift…and now…

Behind her, the front door opened. "I messed up royal," Kris said, as Tom sat down next to her. "If I hadn't —"

"'If only' gets in the way," Tom said. "Focus on 'now'. And learn from it, trainee. You got lucky, having Frank and Joe with you. Next time, they may not be there to cover your mistakes."

"Understood," Kris said, not looking at him.

Tom sighed. "We've all been there. There's times you have to make that snap judgement and pray it's right. Now accept your mistake, put it behind you, and move on. We need to deal with that basement before Holmes and Watson get it in their heads to go back up there."

They would. Kris _knew _them. Knife or no knife, Frank and Joe would keep picking at the "Allen" business or…god forbid…whatever was in the basement, if Joe had told Frank about it.

And Joe told Frank _everything, _sooner or later.

A bit later, they were heading out to the house — Tom armed with his .45 and his own K-bar. Kris had restocked her jacket pockets: Sharon's hand-crafted pillar candles inscribed with holy symbols from any religion Kris could think of, more salt, dried sage bound into bundles, holy water from the local Catholic church, chalk in the primary colors. It'd been another small argument, Sharon coming with them, but Sharon wouldn't be gainsaid: she was a spirit-talker and an expert in Christian occultism, she was needed, that was that, and finally Tom threw up his hands, gave in.

To Kris's surprise, though, Sharon had packed a small supply of canned goods, sandwiches, and a can opener in the trunk, including a couple spare blankets.

Kris bowed her head. "Compassion, again."

"Yes," Sharon said. "It saves time in the long run."

Watching all this with wide eyes, Stacy still wouldn't answer anything about the man in the house, though she'd insisted on coming out with them. Kris understood that; she didn't want to stay alone with Mann on the loose, either.

"Stacy," Tom said finally, as they pulled onto the turn-off; Kris breathed a sigh of relief when she didn't see Frank and Joe's van, "that man's already knifed one person. If he threatens anyone, I won't hesitate to shoot. If there's something going on, you need to tell us."

Stacy only shook her head again.

In daylight, the house didn't look threatening at all, just a run-down wreck surrounded in overgrown grass and weeds. Tom eyed the burned trees, but said nothing, helping his wife navigate the rocks and molehills hidden by the long grass. But Stacy ran up the hill ahead of them, disappearing into the house before they could call her back.

The door was still wide open. Tom went in first, then stopped just over the threshold, his head cocked, then motioned Sharon and Kris in.

Sunlight flooded the foyer. All the first floor doors were open, except for the basement; a fresh breeze blew through the house from the kitchen. A man stood in the living room doorway, holding a broom: hair going gray, a hard, square, stubbled face, clothes that had definitely seen better days. Stacy stood just behind him, her arms crossed, staring at the floor.

Somehow, it was hard to reconcile this man holding a broom and a dustpan with the tramp who'd supposedly knifed Frank last night…

"You have my knife," Kris said.

The man's mouth quirked. He reached into the living room, snagged something — the K-bar — then held it out to her, hilt first.

Oookay. That was unexpected.

"My daughter says you've been helping her," the man said quietly. "I'm Allen. Allen Tremaine."

##

"The boy surprised me."

They were all seated in the living room; Allen had been sweeping the glass up from the shattered chandelier. He'd accepted the food and blankets gratefully and torn into the sandwiches. "No one's supposed to be up here, and Sheriff Hollister definitely doesn't want me in town. After what Stacy told me, I panicked. Thought her mother'd sent him after her, and him going after me like that…" Allen shook his head.

Tom gave Kris a _look._ Kris bowed her head.

"Mama won't let him near our house," Stacy said quietly.

"I messed up," Allen said. "Out of the army, no job, no money, I'd gotten my girl pregnant, and I was flat desperate." He sighed. "Denham talked us into it, said he'd protect us. Did some weird shit to prove it. Scared the Jesus out of both of us. But him and me got caught, and Eddie — he was my best friend — I don't know. Denham claimed Eddie had the loot, but then he'd laugh…" Allan shuddered. "But I did my time. I'm staying straight. Problem is, there's even less jobs for a former jailbird. Been trying to shelter my baby best I can, up here."

Tom leaned forward. "What did Denham do?"

Allen looked straight at him. "Mister, you wouldn't believe it."

"Try me," Tom said.

"Devil's work." Allen's mouth worked, as if he wanted to spit. "Killed a rabbit — I still hear that squeal in my nightmares. But…something…came after he did." His hands trembled; he clenched them in his lap. "Don't ask me more, mister."

Oh god. Kris swallowed, caught the look Tom and Sharon exchanged. There'd been a recent best-seller out on such things, by some professor who claimed far too much first-hand experience: blood magic, magic powered by death and pain. "That thing in the basement," Kris said in a low voice, to keep it from shaking. "Did Denham do that, too?"

"I don't know," Allen said. "This was his family house. He claimed the Devil ran in his line." Allen ran his hand through his hair. "I opened that door once, when I came back, slammed it when that thing jumped the stairs. Haven't dared open it since."

"Rumor is," Sharon said, "the VFW got chased out of here by the curse."

"More like by that thing," Allen said.

"Then we take care of it." Tom got to his feet. "Sharon, Kris, come on. Daylight's burning."

"Mister, don't," Allen said, as Kris pulled out the pillar candles. "That thing's devil's work. It needs a preacher, not —" He stopped, staring.

Tom had lit one of the candles, just by touching the wick with his fingertip.

"In His Holy Name, we are gathered," Sharon said softly. "No, Allen, we're not devil's work. Not unless you consider Christ's own Gifts demonic. Kris, dear, are you okay with this?"

If Tom and Sharon had been her parents, she might still be Christian. Not anymore, never again, way too late to fix it. But Kris nodded.

"Fine," Tom said. "Allen, you and Stacy stay here, near the door. It goes bad," Tom handed Allen the car keys, "run. Go back to our house. List next to the phone. Call Mar Mountainhawk in Bayport, tell her the whole story. She'll bring the calvary."

"No, Tom," Sharon said firmly. "You stay here. You need to intercept Frank and Joe. They won't listen to Allen."

The car keys dangling in his hand, Allen was staring. "You _trust_ me?"

"Some reason we shouldn't?" Tom said. He and Sharon were staring at each other, Sharon tapping her fingers against her crossed arms. Finally Tom rolled his eyes, lifted a palm: _fine, have it your way._

Allen slowly shook his head. "You people are crazy."

"Are we?" Sharon picked up two of the candles. "Or is it that this world's forgotten how to be sane? Kris, come on."

Tom took up a casual lean in the open front doorway. Kris took the other two candles and followed Sharon, who paused at the basement door, eyeing it.

"Heavy duty stuff you used," Sharon said.

"It wanted Joe," Kris said. "It was busting the door to get him. Sharon, I don't know what happened. Joe —"

"Not now," Sharon said. "Focus, little hawk." Kris blinked; no one had ever called her that before. But Sharon had opened the basement door, murmuring. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God…"

Kris remembered too well what that thing had done, how it had leaped, what it had taken to hold it off. Faith and Bible verses against that thing…?

It wasn't enough. Tom carried his .45 for a reason, after all.

Her free hand clenched around the K-bar. She was a Blade. Faith or no faith, she was supposed to deal with this. Kris stepped down onto the wooden stairs, raising her candle up.

Something skittered in the darkness, just beyond the light.

Haloed in soft gold, Sharon stopped at the bottom of the stairs, set her candle on the concrete. "…but as many as received him, to them gave He power to become the children of God…" She set another candle down, lighting it with a Bic. "…and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth…" She paused, cocked a look back at Kris.

Christian or not, it was an established ritual system: a circle of protection, calling the quarters as guardians. West and north, water and earth, heart and body; that left east and south, air and fire, thought and will, for Kris. Right. She knelt, set her first candle down…

The movement leaped; a rotted hand snatched towards her face.

Kris fell back, panic, fear overwhelming all thought —

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon us." Sharon touched Kris's shoulder. Sharon, pregnant, trusting, unarmed. "He hath anointed me to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that are bound…"

Light flared. The monster checked itself, its snarling ringing through the damp stone.

"Hurry, dear." Sharon sounded tired.

_Fred the monster gape-grinned in the corner of Frank & Joe's bedroom, as Joe proudly told her about beating the crap out of it with a baseball bat, because it was going after his brother…_

Staring full into the bloated gray-black face, Kris forced herself back up, spread her hands against the old concrete, crumbled and exposing bare earth. Thought…thought and will. The first thing to mind, the first thing taught to any Gift: focus. One deep breath, then reach out, down into herself, into the earth…

…_his hand clenched in hers, Joe had stood with her, facing down the horror in a circle of light, then braved it again to simply bring her water…_

Something touched _back_, as if hands gripped hers in a warm, friendly clasp. An image hung in front of her eyes, burning in her heart and mind, mantling over the candle and screaming its defiance: a kestrel hawk.

The horror recoiled.

_Little hawk,_ Sharon had called her. Still trembling, Kris set the last candle in the south, closest to the stairs, and lit it, reached out again, calling. The candle flared into a long stream of fire, fiery wings and streaming tail of sunlight.

Okay. Kris wasn't about to argue with whatever that was. She turned back, caught Sharon smiling at her. Around them, the circle of light and power glowed, complete, Christian and…other…both.

"You're learning," Sharon said, then turned back to the shape that had crept to the edge of the light. It prowled back and forth, reaching out, snatching its hand back. "Poor man. Poor, poor, deluded man. Look at him, little hawk. What Allen said, about Denham."

Slowly Kris nodded. What Joe had seen last night: a sullen cord of darkness leading from the thing off into the shadows. This thing was bound here, was solid enough to have attacked, to have hit the door. That meant some-_one_ had to have been used to make this creature, willingly or not.

Bits of that book came to mind: a _dybbuk_ — no, that was Jewish, unlikely in this town. A _draugr_ maybe, or a revenant. "This…this can't be Denham — no, wait." Kris leaned back, called up the stairs. "Allen?"

Movement rustled up top. Allen peered down the stairwell, but didn't move closer.

"Your friend," Kris said, "what was his name?"

"Eddie," Allen said. "Eddie Wood."

That got definite reaction from the thing, a hissing snarl.

"Allen," Sharon said carefully, "come straight down the stairs to us here. This needs you, too, I think."

To his credit, Allen only hesitated a moment, then came down fast to stand by Sharon, before the thing could react. Allen paled as the thing snatched out and jerked back again as its hand got too near the circle. "Eddie," Allen breathed.

"You recognize him," Sharon said.

"That suit," Allen said. "That stupid zoot suit of his. He was so proud of it. Got it in New York, day we got discharged from the Army. His magic suit, he called it. Said it always got him the girls."

Fear hadn't faded; shaking hadn't stilled. To hide it, Kris crossed her arms, scowled at the thing. It watched, waiting for them to trip up; its hunger, its frustration beat at her. The cord bound it here, so the cord had to be cut, at least…but that would mean leaving the circle…

Unless…

"Sharon," Kris said slowly, struggling to keep her voice level, "whoever did this. They put all the power into the physical. So…that means it's weak on the non-physical, right?"

"You want to do what you did with Abby," Sharon said.

_Want_? No way. Abby had been harmless, had completely trusted her friend. This thing…

But "want" wasn't the issue. The right thing was what had to be done, no matter what Kris wanted.

If Kris survived this, she was going to _kill_ Frank and Joe for telling her about Fred. Swallowing, Kris nodded. "We can't cut that cord here. It'll jump us. But if I step out…"

"Your choice, Hawk," Sharon said. "Be aware of it. And beware refusing it."

She would say that now.

"Allen," Kris said, forcing her voice steady. It didn't work. "Talk to him. Anything. About…about…life. About before. Keep him distracted." Hopefully it would ignore the small harmless teen creeping up until it was too late.

"Him? That's not Eddie, little lady. Not now. It's —"

"It's your friend," Sharon broke in gently. "He's trapped. He's enslaved here. Just as you were, both of you trapped by that man Denham." Softer, "It's time for captivity to end."

Kris pulled out the salt and the holy water, handed them to Sharon. "Just in case." Her hands didn't shake, much. Then Kris sat, shifted until she found a position she could hold, and focused on the south candle, fire and will, slowing her breathing to deep, regular rhythm.

Slowly, slowly, the world shifted, thicker and muffled as if wrapped in packing foam, as she loosened her hold on her body…

…and stepped out.

She'd always been able to step out of body, as far back as she could remember. Or maybe she'd just been driven out by the beatings, the _other_. Not that it mattered. Dying had never mattered; she'd never cared. Around her, the circle glowed, the light warm, comforting, though obscuring all sight beyond its border.

Somewhere nearby, as if muffled through water, deep masculine murmuring.

Allen. Sharon. That thing. Right.

Kris stepped out of the circle and into cold gray, the underpinnings of the material world — not the Afterworld, not even close. The in-between, the shadows, cloudy and insubstantial, a smeared finger-painting done in grays and dust. The gold light was at her back; she had to keep her bearings. It was too easy to get lost out here.

She turned and came face-to-face with the _draugr._

No, not a monster. A young man painted in light shades of gray threaded with oily black; he reached towards that light with desperate yearning in his face. Here, the black bindings were oily and smoking, dark curls of soot wisping up and fading into the gray. It wrapped around the young man's calves, dragging at his knees so that he couldn't stand upright.

He hadn't seen her. Not yet. His attention was all on the light and the two glowing figures within.

"You don't have to stay here, you know," Kris said. What Sharon had told Abby, back when. Speech was odd here, the sound cut from the air, leaving only the after-echo.

It startled — no, _he_ startled, seeing her, then shambled closer, reaching —

Kris reached back into the light, poised. Showing fear would be bad, but he was _bigger, _he was stronger, he…

…looking at him, though…

Allen was right. It was a really dorky-looking suit.

"Okay," she said, "go ahead. Get it out of your system. Snarl and act like a monster, and I'll wait inside here until you're done, and then you'll let me help you. Deal?"

Yeah. She'd definitely been hanging around Joe and Frank too long. Maybe she'd get lucky and they'd come charging down here and see all the real glowy magic…

Those two, get past Tom. Right.

Unmoving, silent, the young man watched her. Mute. Maybe he couldn't speak. Maybe that was part of the curse.

"You attack, I go back," Kris said. "You lose your chance. Remember that." Slowly, cautiously, she eased past him, towards the black cord. Smoky hate, oily malice, fear — it all beat at her, even from an arm's length out. Not from the young man at all. From the _cord._

Her K-bar was with her physical body. Nothing to cut with. Her trembling had worsened; she could feel it shaking her physical body. Stepping out was easy, but maintaining it drained the body hard — she was earning the next migraine, definitely. So how to cut this evil, black…

…monster. Nothing but another monster. Another monster in front of her, until she'd stepped past the magic and seen the truth: a young man trapped by another's hate.

Magic was perception, magic was will, magic was _belief_.

Part of her could still taste the buffalo cheeseburgers, under the sugar maple as Joe told her Fred's tale, as he and Frank had shown her the goofy-looking thing and gotten a scared little runaway laughing: the scary boys-next-door nothing but kids like her, their big scary monster reduced to a child's toy…

…because their mom had changed the story Joe was telling himself…

_You judged without knowing the whole story._

"I was trapped, too," Kris said quietly. "My parents…hurt me, real bad. But then someone offered me a hand. I was hurting so bad, I couldn't believe I was worth helping. But he offered, and all I had to do was get the guts to take it. I took it. I got away. And now I have a real home. A real family. And maybe that's all you need to do, have the guts to take what you're being offered."

She held her own hand out.

Slowly, the young man shuffled toward her. His palm touched hers, his face lit with sudden hope —

And in that touch, she _knew._

"You _weren't _attacking," Kris breathed. "You were trying to get _help…"_

Sharp noise echoed through the gray, shockwaves of pain from somewhere above — then something grabbed her, slammed her against the basement wall, jerking her back into the physical. Her head cracked against the concrete; a hand pressed against her throat, choking off air. Her entire body had gone weak, limp. Dizzy, disoriented, she blinked through grainy, hazed vision; a gun shoved into her face —

Mann leered down at her.


	20. The Ranch was saved!

_**Author's Note: stupid frackin' ISP. Nope, not yet done...but here ya go...**_

* * *

><p>Gunshots, the <em>house…!<em>

Then a scream —

"Stacy," Joe breathed, and took off running.

"_No, Joe, wait!" _

Joe hit the tree line and the fence, just as his brother caught up; Frank grabbed his arm, yanked him back before Joe could climb the cast-iron pickets.

"For someone who hates trouble, you're running straight into it," Frank snapped. "Go that way, we're sitting ducks —"

Up the hill, Tom was no longer in the doorway, no one in sight. That didn't mean no one was watching. "Back door," Joe said, and managed a grin at Frank's _look_.

They took off at a run, circling the bottom of the hill around to the back before climbing the fence. The back door of the house stood open, creaking in the morning breeze —

An eerie, wailing howl split the morning air, freezing both brothers in place.

Dear God…that thing? Nothing at the windows; still no one apparently watching. Joe yanked away from Frank's grasp again, made it to the back porch, vaulted the railing and up to the door.

There Joe pulled up short. Open door, possible psychotic doctor with gun, monster wanting to eat them, target, right. Loud angry voices echoed from somewhere in the house; someone was still alive in there. Joe listened hard, as Frank ran up to the porch; as usual, Frank was way too cautious, edging from window to window. At least two male voices, a third higher-pitched, but too muffled to make out who.

"If they were watching the windows," Joe said as Frank came up, "they'd've shot me already."

"Don't tempt me." Frank pushed Joe behind him, cautiously peered past the edge of the door. Joe leaned past his brother's shoulder: a clear view through the interior door to the foyer —

Tom was sprawled face-down, in a pool of blood.

Nothing else in sight. Frank started forward, Joe just behind him to his right, but this time, Joe yanked _him_ to a halt at the edge of the foyer.

"Basement," Joe breathed, nodding to the left, just past the doorway. He was not going to panic. He just was not.

The basement door was open.

"Where are they?" Mann, from the basement. Silence, then, "I said, where. Are. They?"

"Doctor." Sharon. Far too calm. "Put the gun down. You're not making sense."

"Either they get out here or I'll shoot!"

"You'll shoot anyway," said another male voice. "Not much incentive, mister."

Both Frank and Joe edged past the edge of the door, just enough to peer down. Mann was right at the bottom of the stairs, facing partly away — Joe choked back a gasp. Mann had Kris in a chokehold against the wall.

Mann shifted; the brothers pulled back immediately.

Joe clenched his hand against the doorframe. His breath came short, rage and panic making it hard to think. If they tried to get to Tom, they'd get spotted. If they attacked Mann, someone would get shot, the SOB would hurt Kris even more…

"Get to the van," Frank said in a low voice. "Get the sheriff on the CB."

"And what are _you_ going to do?"

Frank hefted one of the spindly kitchen chairs. "Whatever I have to."

"_No way._" Joe grabbed up another chair. "We're a team, _brother."_

"_Joe —"_

"I'm not explaining to Dad why I let you take on a crazy doctor by yourself," Joe whispered fiercely. "That's _your_ job."

"So Mann shoots both of us and neither of us have to explain. That's the idea?"

Frank had a way of skewering Joe's plans in the worst way possible. Joe opened his mouth, then froze.

Tom had struggled partway up, had seen the brothers; the front of his shirt soaked in blood, he was pressing one hand against his upper chest. Weakly, Tom mimed a gun, held up two fingers, then fell back against the floor, gasping.

"Two guns," Frank murmured. "This just keeps getting better and better."

Mann and Allen Tremaine, it had to be. Allen had probably enticed the doctor with the missing bank money. Joe leaned heavily against the wall. There had to be something, anything, to even the odds. If they just had another person…

…another person…

"Stay here." Joe flattened himself against the wall across from the basement door, edged out into the foyer. At that angle, he could barely see the top of Mann's head. Hopefully Mann couldn't see him, either — then Joe was past the basement door, slid to a kneel beside Tom. Okay. Tom was breathing, awake, moving…

…though the first aid class had somehow skipped over all the blood, terror, and overwhelming panic.

Tom's bloodstained hand grabbed Joe's; Joe barely stopped the panicked yelp. "Idiots," Tom breathed. "Get…sheriff. Lung hit…"

By the time the sheriff got here, Mann would've killed everyone. Joe shook his head. Nothing he could do for Tom, yet. Joe pushed back to his feet, staggered into the dining room. There, the fake mummified Psycho corpse. He hefted it up — solid, heavy — lugged it out to the foyer.

Realization lit Frank's face. Frank smiled grimly, grabbed the chair back up.

Choked noise. Joe glanced. Tom was bent over his elbows, his shoulders shaking, but he lifted his head, grinned at Joe.

Right, whatever. Joe closed his eyes, breathed a prayer, then watched Frank mouth the countdown: three, two, one…

Joe hurled the Psycho corpse down the stairs.

A bloodcurdling _scream_ split the air, falling down the stairs with the fake corpse —

— _from _the corpse?!

— gunshots —

Frank leaped down the stairs, Joe right at his heels, both barreling into Mann. Mann slammed into the wall, going down under a tangle of chair, brothers, and Psycho-corpse.

Hands grabbed Joe, hauled him away. "Help her, son." An older man shoved past Joe, went down beside Frank, helping Frank keep Mann pinned, and Joe backed up, looking frantically around for anything to use as a weapon. But then movement caught his gaze —

— Kris?

She stood further out, in the dark, but it couldn't be her. Mann had…

But Kris stood in front of that rotting shambling corpse thing, and it was reaching for her. Fighting not to gag at the stench of decay and rotted meat, Joe started towards her. He wasn't going to let that monster eat their little tagalong, no way, not while he was still standing!

"Stacy, get that rope!" the older man snapped.

Joe froze. The older man and Frank fought to keep Mann down, Stacy was in the hollow under the stairs and searching around the floor, but Kris lay unconscious against the near wall. Sharon bent over her, frantically feeling Kris's neck for pulse, for breath…

But that was _impossible._ Kris still stood in the dark, her hand outstretched towards the rotted, decaying corpse.

She looked directly at Joe.

Joe stared back, not understanding. Still the rotting corpse, partially collapsed over its knees and one hand reaching towards Kris…but over it, another face, another form —

The face Joe had seen just that morning on the front page of a small town newspaper: a man with a lean, starved face, in a really stupid-looking suit.

The third bank robber, Ed Wood. The one that everyone had said got away with the cash, the money that no one had found, the man no one had found. But this was Denham house, and the other robber was named Denham, and according to Frank, Allen had been searching for something.

So if the missing robber's corpse was here…

Joe's breath caught, as it came together. He could still see the black cord, as he had last night. Oily and glistening, it wrapped around the monstrous corpse, the third robber, forcing it to his knees.

The other end led away into the dark.

Whispering hissed through the basement, just at the edge of hearing; behind Joe, Frank swore, and Mann yelled, a yell cut off in a strangled gasp. But Kris now held both hands out towards the fetid corpse, as if calming — Joe didn't wait. Now, while it was distracted. He circled around, further into the basement, following that black line.

There. It ended at a crumbly, badly-mortared brick wall. It didn't look right: the bricks weren't laid in the usual pattern, the mortar missing in spots.

Joe laid his hands against the bricks and shoved.

Something _bit,_ an electric shock as if teeth sank into his skin. Joe yelped, jerked back, as the bricks collapsed into a dark, stinking space behind the wall….

…and the rotted, decaying shamble of a man collapsed with it, dissolving as if it'd never been.

"Joe, what are you _doing?" _Frank snapped.

Joe turned — just as Mann heaved up, threw both Frank and the other man off. Mann grabbed up the gun, struggled to his knees —

Stacy nailed him on the temple with a crowbar.

Mann staggered, dropped the gun. Both Frank and Joe tackled him — Joe yelped again, as Mann managed to sock him with an elbow. Mann was a bad guy, people were supposed to _drop_ when you hit them in the head, wasn't that what —

"Hold him _down_, Joe!"

"I'm _trying!"_ He'd been up all night, infiltrated a mad doctor's lair, committed possible assault on his brother's say-so, had just destroyed a monster, and Frank was _griping? _

"Stop, or I'll shoot!"

Both brothers glanced up, and both froze; even Mann stopped struggling. Now Joe got a good look at the older man…too good a look.

Allen Tremaine, the _living_ bank robber.

With Mann's gun in hand.

"Get off him, boys," Allen said.

Slowly, Joe pushed himself up and away from Mann, Frank at his side. Checkmate. They didn't dare tackle Allen, not with that gun. Joe risked a glance back at Sharon, as he and Frank moved closer together, just enough to shield her from Allen's line of sight. Sharon knelt by Kris, who was struggling to rise, mumbling unintelligibly, but Sharon gently held her down — then Sharon met Joe's gaze and calmly nodded.

"Either of you boys know how to shoot?" Allen said. He still aimed at Mann, not even watching Frank and Joe.

Silence.

"Yeah," Frank said, with a confused look at Joe.

"He was third in the Bayport Target League," Joe said, before he could stop himself.

Allen's mouth quirked. "Good enough. C'mere and take the heat. I'm not allowed one of these, with my parole. Sharon, is the little lady okay?"

"She's breathing," Sharon said. "She needs a doctor. Frank, Joe, is Tom…" She didn't finish.

Joe nodded, still watching Allen warily. That wasn't how it was supposed to go. It had to be a trick. But Frank moved forward, and Allen handed him the gun.

"Y'know, son," Allen said, "you keep going after armed bad guys like that, you're gonna get hurt."

"Um," Frank said.

"Joe," Stacy said softly, and handed Joe a length of old clothesline when he looked at her. She still held the crowbar in her other hand. "I can't do knots that well." She flushed, looked down.

Mann raised his head. "You wouldn't dare," he said, to Frank. "You're just a —"

"Try me," Frank said, and Joe stared; he'd never heard his brother sound so cold, or so adult.

"He won't kill you where he's aiming," Allen growled, to Mann. "But it'll sure as hell make sure you can't rape any more kids."

"And if Frank won't shoot," Joe said, as he started binding Mann's hands with the rope, "we'll just let Stacy beat your head in."

"Sharon," Allen said, "I'll help with your man. She okay to leave, for right now?"

"Our van's open," Frank said, glancing up at Sharon. "We have a CB."

"Thank you," Sharon whispered, and ran up the stairs, Allen right on her heels.

Joe finished tightening the rope on Mann's wrists, then shoved the doctor, hard, so that Mann landed face-first and chest-down on the concrete. Then, only then, did Frank relax his stance and let his aim drop towards the floor, before sagging against the wall. But Joe turned towards Kris, who lay shivering against the floor — and to Joe's surprise, she was crying.

"Tag?" Joe said, touching her shoulder. She jerked away, said something he didn't catch, tried to rise; he gently pushed her back down. Her eyes were open, but she didn't seem to see him.

Then his attention was caught. He hadn't noticed them before, with everything else, but there were candles spaced around the immediate area, thick pillars carved with odd symbols. Joe recognized a pentagram and the Greek letters alpha and omega on the closest, but nothing beyond that. Three of the candles were knocked over and askew, hardened wax pooled under them, but the one closest to Kris was still lit, a comforting puddle of light.

"He moves," Joe heard Frank say, "hit him." Then Frank knelt beside Joe, laid a hand on Kris's face and neck. "Pulse feels okay — oh God, she's _cold_. Shock. Joe, your jacket." Frank was already pulling his own off, laying it over Kris.

"He hit her really hard against the wall," Stacy said, her voice trembling. "I heard the crunch."

After what he'd seen…Joe bit his lip. This small town didn't have a hospital. He didn't even know if it had a second doctor, for that matter, and they weren't about to ask Mann for help.

Kris was shaking her head, trying to pull the jackets off, jerking away from both brothers' touch. Then, suddenly, she spoke clearly, whispering, begging. "Stop. Please…stop…I didn't do it…please…"

"It's okay, tag," Joe said quietly. "You're safe."

"Concussion," Frank said, head bowed, his own hand gripping Kris's shoulder. "Not good." But then he raised his head, fixed Joe with a look. "Mind telling me what you were doing over _there_ while I was taking care of Mann?"

Oh God, how to explain…"I…I think I found Wood. The missing robber."

Frank stared. "What?"

Joe didn't want to leave Kris, but… Joe picked up the lit candle, pushed to his feet, led Frank back to the crumbled bricks. The stench had lessened only a little, but Joe still fought gagging and Frank coughed.

The hole wasn't big enough for them to see clearly. Together, the brothers shoved the rest of the loose bricks free, pushing them in until the hole was large enough for Joe to pick the candle back up and hold it so the tiny, flickering light fell inside.

A rotted, skeletal corpse in the moldy remains of an old suit…sprawled on bags stamped with "Jackson National Bank.


	21. The Young Intern sat by himself

_**Author's note: Yes, the Hardys are Irish-American; it's stated in the blue-spines, "The Witchmaster's Key". So…**_

_**Thanks to the Hardy Detective Agency Forum for the last minute canon help and the great genealogy discussion, and to Steven & Cathy Jo Smith of the Dublin OH Irish Festival for the fascinating info on the Irish & Irish-American wake tradition.**_

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_Mom had just died. Frank was ten._

_He should be crying. He should be sad. He'd cried at the hospital, he'd cried last night, and for now, his crying was done. For now, all he'd felt was relief and curiosity — relief, that it was finally over. Curiosity, over what the adults insisted be done to appease Mom's ghost and make sure she "went the good road"._

_None of it made sense._

_Smoking pipes all through the house, laden with tobacco. All the clocks had been stopped, and mirrors covered in black cloth or turned to the wall. A bowl of salt near the coffin, along with lit candles. Only one window open, the one nearest her body. That was the horrible part: Mom was in the living room. They'd dressed her in her best dress, covered her in a white shroud from the chest down with a rosary wrapped around her hands, and laid the coffin under that front window. _

_Gramma Kelly, Grandma and Grandpa Hardy, and all the old relatives, the great-aunts and -uncles, had approved openly and loudly, with many toasts of foul-smelling whiskey. They'd tried giving some to both Frank and Joe — tried, only. Dad had stopped them. Not that Frank would've drunk it. It smelled bad, a grassy, earthy-mud smell that made him sick. _

_Upstairs in their room, Joe had still been crying; horror and shock had made both brothers run and hide when the adults had first brought Mom in. No amount of coaxing, bribery, or threat had convinced Joe to come out, and Dad had finally, firmly, escorted Gramma Kelly away from the boys' room. Dad had come back upstairs, had gently told both boys it was okay to stay in their room if they needed to, then had drawn them both into another long, tight hug. Frank had wanted to keep hiding, had wanted to stay upstairs with his brother, but curiosity had proved too strong a draw — though Frank couldn't look at Mom's body. He kept as far from the coffin as he could; he resolutely kept his face turned away. _

_The house stunk, an overwhelming sick-sweet odor of flowers and tobacco smoke, with a rancid undertone of chemical and rotted meat. _

_The adults had been telling stories about Mom, what she'd done as a kid and growing up. A lot of those stories had been funny, especially the ones about Mom staring down a goose, Mom nearly setting Gramma's house on fire learning to cook, Mom hiding frogs in Uncle Mick's bed. Frank filed them away in his head, to tell Joe later._

_But the adults had all been laughing. They'd all been happy. They'd all seemed happy that Mom was dead…_

"_It's a wake, child," Aunt Gertrude had said when Frank had finally asked. All the other relatives had just laughed and tousled his hair, but Aunt Gertrude had pulled Frank into a comforting hug of her own. "We sit up with your Mom and tell stories, so that she has a lot of good memories to take with her to Heaven."_

"_But she's dead." Frank had swallowed hard before the tears could come again. "She can't hear anything."_

"_Her ghost can," Aunt Gertrude said. "We cover the mirrors so she doesn't get confused. The window's so she takes the right way. The pipes…" She'd smiled tightly; she'd always been very vocal in her disapproval of smoking. "I think those are really for the guests, but supposedly it keeps evil spirits away."_

_It'd made no sense. None at all. Mom wasn't a ghost; ghosts were monsters, ghosts could come get you. "Mom doesn't get lost," Frank whispered. "She always tells Dad where to go."_

_Aunt Gertrude had laughed, had hugged Frank tighter. "Go on upstairs to Joe. He shouldn't be alone with all this. I'll bring dinner up later. Mrs. Morton brought over those potato dumplings he likes."_

_Still keeping his gaze away from the coffin, Frank had gone back upstairs. But to Frank's surprise, Joe had been coming out of their room, pale, his face tear-streaked, his voice trembling. "It's okay. Mom said she was okay." Joe hadn't been able to look at his brother. "She said to act like she was Fred."_

_Mom had talked to Joe? Joe never lied, not to him. They never lied to each other. But how come Mom talked to Joe and not him? Frank missed her, too._

"_She said…" Joe had swallowed, still not looking at Frank, "she said she'd try to talk to you tonight. To not be afraid." Then his voice had broken, and the threatened tears streaked his face. "She said she didn't want to go."_

_That night, nothing. Just silence, just nightmares, just the sounds of the drunk adults downstairs, singing the songs from the old country. The next morning, Frank had been upset, angry, his own tears starting all over again, like a bawling little baby. Why Joe? Why not him? He couldn't imagine Mom treating him like that. Not ever. _

_His brother had to have dreamed it. Joe had only imagined it. That had to be it…_

The morning had worn into the afternoon in a hazy, dream-like cloud fueled by too little sleep and too much coffee. Frank rubbed at his forehead, fighting not to nod off. For something so complicated, for something that had seemed likely to blow up in all their faces in the worst way possible…it all worked out.

Mostly, anyway.

Frank sat in the Wareham General Hospital's waiting area; Joe was slumped against the windows, his third can of Coke in hand. Thank God, Circle Hills had volunteer EMTs. They'd life-flighted both Tom and Kris to Wareham — the EMTs hadn't thought Kris was in immediate danger, but since they were using the helicopter anyway, better safe than sorry.

Tom, though…

Mann was currently locked in the Circle Hills jail, but only after a lot of yelling from Sharon and Allen. Sheriff Hollister had a hard time believing that the respected doctor — his long-time fishing buddy — had done such things: not in _his_ town, not in _his _jurisdiction, not under _his_ nose, and these wet-behind-the-ears out-of-town boys claiming this nonsense…

…but on learning that said "boys" were _Fenton Hardy's sons…_

Yeah. Frank had to admit, Hollister's expression at that moment had been distinctly satisfying.

The brothers had called Dad from the Walkers' house before driving the others to Wareham. Fenton had pulled major strings. He had not only gotten his pilot friend Jack to fly him and Mar down to Wareham, but Fenton had also come into the waiting room with the state police _and_ a dour-faced FBI agent at his heels.

The agent, a square-jawed man named Harry Hammond, had gone grim on hearing Frank and Joe's story — the highly-abbreviated version. The police, Hammond, and Fenton were now talking quietly with Sharon, Allen and Stacy on the other side of the waiting area; Mar was back with Kris in the emergency room.

Shoulders hunched, gaze firmly on the floor, Stacy stood as if expecting a blow, Allen's arm around her. That had been another major shock in a day full of them, that Allen was Stacy's father, that he'd been trying to protect her this whole time.

But the worst part, for Frank, was watching Sharon Walker. Sharon's arms were crossed; she swayed from foot to foot, visibly upset, pale and on the verge of tears. Watching her, knowing that somehow, someway, he and Joe were responsible, that because of his and Joe's insistence on getting involved in Stacy's problem, the Walkers had been dragged in, and Tom had been shot.

Movement caught his attention; Frank looked up. A doctor now stood with Dad's group, and after a few minutes of listening, Fenton visibly sighed, pushed to his feet.

"Frank, Joe…" Fenton came over, gripped Frank's shoulder, eyed the can of Coke in Joe's hand. "They're keeping Kris a couple days for observation. Mar's going to stay and help Sharon. _We_ are going back to Circle Hills." Joe opened his mouth, but Dad gently cut him off. "I'll drive."

"What about Tom?" Frank said.

"Stable. But it was close. He's in ICU." Fenton gripped Joe's shoulder, too, shook both his sons gently, emphatically. "Don't ever — _ever_ — take on an armed man like that again. That's for the cops. Not you."

Sharon and Allen must've told him. Frank looked away; he and Joe had tried to skip that part, mostly.

"We didn't have time," Joe said. "Mann would've killed everyone —"

"— and he could've easily killed you, too," Fenton said. "Then everyone would've died anyway. You should've gone for help."

Frank said nothing. He'd tried to get Joe to do just that, and Joe hadn't listened.

"Frank told me to," Joe said, not looking at their father. "But I couldn't just leave him."

Now Fenton eyed Frank. "And you were going to stay behind _why?"_

Ouch. Frank couldn't look at him, either. "Sorry, Dad."

Fenton sighed. "Look, boys…next time, _please…"_ Another sigh. "Listen to me. 'Next time.' Don't let there _be_ a next time, all right?"

Hammond and the state cop had come up behind Fenton. "We got the court order," Hammond said. "Your sons can tell me the story on the way. The whole story, this time. We need you to show us everything."

Right now, Frank wasn't tracking too well; it made no sense why the FBI was getting involved. "But I thought murder was just local jurisdiction."

"The bank robbery," Fenton reminded him. "That makes it federal."

"Not to mention Mann possibly trafficking in children," Hammond said grimly, "if those pictures you saw are any indication. Tremaine's staying here. He said he's not leaving his daughter alone, and she doesn't want to go near Circle Hills again…and, well, I believe him. If he'd known where the loot was, he'd've flown the coop long before any of this went down." Hammond sighed. "I've got a daughter her age myself."

"Our people'll meet us at the sheriff's office," the state cop said.

A couple hours later, Mann's home had been sealed off, and the woods surrounding Denham house now buzzed with state crime scene investigators and cadaver dogs. Denham house itself had been the easiest to deal with, the easiest to clean up and process since so much time had passed and the supposed perpetrator was already dead, but one point caught Frank's attention…

"You boys know, there's a reward for finding the missing loot," the state cop said, as Ed Wood's remains were carried out in a sealed body-bag.

Joe shook his head. "Give it to Stacy. She needs it more than we do…" He faltered, glanced at Frank. "I mean, if that's okay with you."

"We insist," Frank said firmly, wiping his hand clean on a rag. The FBI agents had fingerprinted both him and Joe so they could eliminate whatever prints the brothers had left from the evidence. "If it hadn't been for her, we wouldn't have gotten involved."

The brothers stood with their father and Hammond on the stairs, watching as the state investigators went over the basement and the space behind the wall. Frank found himself looking curiously at one of the pillar candles, stuck to the crumbled concrete in a hardened puddle of wax. The candles were carved with pentagrams and other odd symbols that Frank didn't recognize.

A pentagram…great. It had to have something to do with their little tagalong and her oogy-boogy nonsense. Frank had wondered why they'd all been down in the basement, why the Walkers had even been here. Once Kris was back home, Frank was going to get on her case until she told them what happened, no matter what.

"But how did you _know?"_ Hammond said to Joe. "Even Tremaine thought his buddy had gotten away. How'd you know Wood didn't?"

It was obvious to Frank: Hammond was hoping for some indication that Tremaine lied. But Frank wasn't sure how Joe had known, either.

"Just a hunch," Joe said. "The bricks didn't look right. That's all."

The exact truth — but Frank knew Joe far too well. Joe had reacted to the photo of Wood in the paper, then had made that odd comment in the library. That was _before_ Joe had seen the wall.

Joe was hiding something.

"That's it?" Hammond was now giving Joe an odd, long stare. "That's not much of a hunch. Did Tremaine say something? Or do anything?"

Frank hadn't said anything about Allen attacking him earlier; it'd been a misunderstanding, after all, and Allen had apologized. "No," Frank said. "Nothing. He was as surprised as we were."

"Don't shield him, boys. If he was involved in Wood's murder —"

"Harry," Fenton broke in firmly, "don't browbeat them. Both you and I know that dumb luck plays a bigger role in cases than we like admitting." Fenton grinned at his sons. "Something else they inherited from their old man, it seems."

"It goes beyond _luck,"_ Hammond muttered.

"Dad," Joe said plaintively, "can we go back to the van? We didn't get much sleep last night, and I'm _dead."_

That was a classic Joe-dodging-the-question if Frank had ever heard one. But Frank couldn't argue; he was almost asleep on his feet himself.

"Go on." Fenton clasped his sons' shoulders again. "We'll head back home soon." Quieter, "And I'm proud of you. Both of you. Mistakes and all."

The chill outside air revived Frank a little, not much. Out in the sunshine and wind, the depressive, dank atmosphere of that basement was a rapidly fading memory as they walked through the damp grass, down the hill to the van, and Frank wasn't about to let Joe dodge the question again, not between them. "All right, out with it," Frank said. "How did you know? Really?"

Joe didn't answer.

"Joe, c'mon. You knew about Wood. You said in the library, you knew what'd happened to him. If there's something I missed, I can take it. So level."

They'd reached the van. Head bowed, Joe still didn't say anything for a long moment, then, "I saw him."

"Saw who?"

"Wood."

It was well after two in the afternoon. They were both running on less than four hours sleep and far too much caffeine, and the excitement of the last few hours was rapidly wearing off. It was enough to mess with anyone's head. Frank breathed out heavily. "Okay, little brother. I get it. Sorry. I'll stop the questions until after we've had some sleep —"

"No, I saw him!" Now Joe faced him squarely. "He was there, in the basement. What was left of him."

"What was _left?" _Frank stared. Joe couldn't have seen Wood's corpse. It'd been behind that wall. "Joe, you're not making sense."

"But…" Joe hesitated, then slumped against the van. "Yeah. You're right. I'm not."

Maybe some part of Wood's body hadn't been behind the wall. That'd explain it. In the dark, it'd have been easy for Frank to have missed it, if some part had been jutting through a hole in the bricks. No wonder Joe had been freaked. "No, you're not dodging it that way. C'mon, Joe. What'd you really see?"

Silence again, for far too long.

"Joe?"

Joe looked up. "A ghost," he said quietly. "I saw a ghost."


	22. He had learned about medicine, but

_**Author's note: Thanks for the reviews, comments, & error catching, everyone! Yeah, finally drawing to a close...**_

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><p><em><strong># # #<br>**_

Frank hadn't called him a liar, at least.

Joe sat slumped on the front stoop of the Hardys' old stone house, a weathered two-story that sat solid and firm amidst mature maple and oak trees. It'd been two days since they'd gotten back from Circle Hills. Despite the sunny day, their front yard was still too muddy to sprawl on. The nor'easter had over-saturated the ground to flood point, and a giant puddle/mini-lake still pooled in the Hardys' back yard. Sheer boredom and restlessness after far-too-much homework had driven Joe to creating folded paper boats to sail across it — the pages of Aunt Gertrude's numerous knitting magazines made a colorful war fleet, made even better when Frank joined in.

Silly, childish, and stupid, but also totally mindless and fun: what they both needed at the moment. The brothers had been skipping rocks in an impromptu game of sink-that-ship, when Aunt Gertrude came out and saw the fleet.

Well, okay, so _that_ stack of magazines was the pile that Aunt Gertrude hadn't read yet. Joe had sort of — all right, _had_ — known that, but…

Frank eased out onto the stoop, carefully shut the front door behind him, and sat beside Joe. "You used all the sweater patterns, didn't you?"

Joe only grinned.

No, Frank hadn't called him a liar, but hadn't believed Joe, either. Or, rather, Frank hadn't believed that the ghost…corpse…monster…whatever Joe had seen…had been real. Smug and assured in his usual big-brother-knows-better way, Frank had smiled, had calmly suggested that Joe had let his imagination run away with him, had come up with several explanations that all sounded sensible, but…but…

"The cemetery's still open," Frank said, slanting a glance at his brother. "Let's get the baseball bats and go zombie hunting."

Frank hadn't let it rest, either. Joe sighed, pushed to his feet. "You go ahead. I'm going to talk to Fred a while."

Maybe Frank was right. Maybe Joe had imagined it. Maybe he had mistaken something else, like another fake corpse — another freak-out, another scare tactic, from whoever owned the place now…

Their van's horn caught their attention as it rounded the corner and passed the park. Mar and Kris were due back today, and Fenton had taken his sons' van down to Circle Hills to pick them up. But Fenton bypassed the Hardys' driveway, pulled into Mar's, stopped long enough to let Mar and Kris out before pulling back out and over to home. Mar's upraised hand halted both Frank and Joe before they could go over; she supported Kris, helping her into the house. Kris's gait was unsteady and unbalanced, as if unsure where to put her feet.

"Leave her alone for now," Fenton said to his sons, as he came up the front walk. "Doctor wants her resting for the next couple days. She's still out of it."

Two other people had clambered out of the van: Allen and Stacy. Allen looked respectable, clean-shaven and hair neatly cut, though his shirt and slacks were still on the worn side; other than that, there was no sign of the down-on-his-luck ex-convict he'd been. Stacy was in jeans and a dark hooded jacket, head down, hands in her pockets, but then she looked up, saw Joe, and smiled shyly.

"What about Tom?" Frank said, as the pair came up the walk.

"Out of ICU," Fenton said. "Mar and Sharon called in a specialist from New York." Their father grinned. "You should've seen him. He looked about two hundred years old — a little Chinese man. Even shorter than Kris. And in full Mandarin robes, and constantly complaining about the stupidity of the American health system."

"He had the entire ward _terrorized,_"Allen said. "Hey, boys." He cleared his throat uncertainly. "I want to thank you again, for helping my daughter. For giving her the reward money."

Stacy hung back behind her father, shuffling her feet and her gaze back on the ground.

Allen smiled at his daughter. "She donated it to the Stevens' little girl. Jenny. To pay for the medical bills."

"Most mischievous little imp I've ever seen," Fenton added. "Worse than you two were, if that's possible."

"Her and that Chinese guy together." Then Allen grinned. "Hospital was glad to shove her out the door."

"But that…" Joe said, to Stacy, "…I mean, what are you going to do? You're not going to stay in Circle Hills?"

Stacy shook her head. Then, suddenly, she moved close, kissed Joe on the cheek; her hair had the faint scent of apples. "You're good person, Joe," she said softly. "Thank you."

She'd kissed him. The beautiful mysterious girl had _kissed_ him. Joe was aware of Frank's grin, but didn't care. She'd _kissed _him, _again! _

"Mar got me a job with her company, in Boston," Allen said. "Security work. With training."

"We're sponsoring a women's shelter," Mar said serenely, coming up. "We're paying for onsite security to help deter problems. Boys, would you two mind watching Kris for a few hours? I'm driving them up to Boston, and she shouldn't be left alone."

"Sure, Mar," Frank said, with a glance at Joe.

Still elated from Stacy's kiss, Joe tried to come back to Earth, to look serious, adult, but inside, he clamped down on more gleeful anticipation: a chance to shake the story out of their little tagalong without the adults around. Kris would back his story up to Frank. She'd been there, she —

— she was their little tagalong who always told stories about the weird spooky stuff. Sure, Frank would believe her. Right…

Fenton, though, obviously knew his sons far too well. "You sure, Mar? Gert wouldn't mind."

Mar lifted an eyebrow at Joe, as if she knew very well what would happen once she left. Joe blushed and ducked his head. It was next-to-impossible to hide anything from Mar. Add Dad to the mix, and both Joe and Frank had learned that the only escape was a mumbled excuse to get out the back door, fast.

"It's okay," Mar said calmly. "Just make sure you let her get _some_ rest, boys."

"You'll have fun in Boston," Joe said to Stacy, to cover himself. He dared it; he took her hand in his, and she didn't pull away. "It's a great town. We'll see each other again."

Stacy looked up, just a hint of that odd, feral smile. "I know."

# # #

Everything felt skewed, as if reality would shift at any moment and the ground would fall from under her. Eyes closed, Kris stretched out on the fake-leather couch, wrapped in a hand-woven blanket patterned in interlocking-triangles, a gift from Mar's sister back on the Arizona reservation. The TV was off, the curtains pulled closed, and the living room was cool, dark, and quiet. Kris had the mother of all migraines at the moment, a persistent pounding ache that would not go away. Light hurt, everything was blurry, and her stomach wouldn't stop rolling.

Worse, on learning that she suffered migraines, the hospital doctor had prescribed Demerol on top of her regular meds to help with the concussion pain. Now Kris was finding out _why_ Mar and others in the Association hated pain drugs. The ergotamine was bad enough, but _this_ stuff…

Master Lin hadn't been able to do much for her, but then, Kris hadn't asked. Mar and Sharon had called the Healer down from NYC, and Lin's energy and focus had been tied up with Tom and little Jenny. Kris hadn't wanted to distract Lin from that, and it'd been worth the pain to see that little sprite of an eight-year-old running into Kris's hospital room and bouncing onto Kris's bed, chattering about her funny new friend in the colorful Chinese robes…

The jouncing, pot-hole-laden trip back from Wareham had been bad, but bearable, though it had included a stop back in Circle Hills for Kris to gather her stuff and for them to drop Sharon off for the day…only to find that Grant Stevens and his wife waiting for them.

Specifically, they'd been waiting for Stacy.

It had been a quiet conference in the Walkers' kitchen, Fenton standing by the sink, Allen sitting close to his daughter, Sharon serving coffee, Mar her usual solid calm. Under Allen's prodding and Sharon and Mar's gentle encouragement, Stacy had told the Stevens her story: Mann, the abuse, Jenny, the brakes…

Silence had fallen for a long, tense moment. Then, silently, Grant had stood, Grant had come around to Stacy's side of the table, Grant had pulled Stacy into a long, tearful hug….

…and apologized.

That was when Kris found out just what Frank and Joe had done and what they'd found. The story had shocked through Circle Hills, a blast-wave of accusations, disbelief, paranoia, and finger-pointing, and Mann's house and the area around Denham House were still sealed off and still crawling with both state and FBI investigators.

The creaky screen door opened. Joe poked his head in, saw that she was awake, then both he and Frank came in. "Hardy Baby-sitting Service, ma'am. It's your lucky day. You get both of us."

"You're a little old for our usual client," Frank said solemnly. "But we can adapt."

"And we're running a special." Joe dropped into a loose sprawl in the suede recliner next to her, scattering crochet pillows in every direction. "All day hand-and-foot waiting on you, just for a story. Start talking, tag. Before we bring out the water balloons."

"Back off, Joe." Frank remained standing, eyeing Kris with open concern. "She looks terrible. Kris, you sure you're okay?"

Kris heard their words, but it took far too long for those words to make sense. For a long moment, she only blinked up at both of them. Even moving her eyes hurt, and the brothers were surrounded in spiky migraine light-halos. "Migraine," she croaked finally. "Won't go away. Demerol. Feel sick."

"Demerol?" Frank stared. "And you're still _awake?"_

Joe, though, eyed her, then silently pushed to his feet; she heard his footsteps going upstairs, then water running. Footsteps creaked back down the stairs, and Joe came back, gingerly holding a wet green washcloth by his fingertips. "Try this. Aunt Gertrude swears by it."

Kris struggled to get an arm loose from the blanket, accepted his help in laying the washcloth on her forehead. It was soaked in hot water, as hot as she could stand. At first, it was almost too much, but after a few seconds the throbbing backed down, enough so that she could at least look at them without wincing.

"Here." Frank set a brown bottle on the coffee table, then sat down on the sofa opposite. "Mar still had some of her ginger ale in the fridge. That'll help the sick part."

Oh lord, they were after something. The Demerol had killed her shields and made her Gifts very shaky, but nothing could mask that intense curiosity. "Guys…"

"Rest," Frank said firmly. "We can wait. I'll sit on Mr. Impatience there, if I have to. Up to hearing our side?"

She nodded. To her surprise, her head didn't fall off. "I heard a little. Grant said something about an act of God of Biblical proportions, but after that, it got really weird."

"_She_ calls it weird," Joe muttered.

"Not quite that bad," Frank said. "Bank robbery, murder, and Stacy kissed Joe again. You know, the usual."

Kris lay quiet, listening. They were expecting her to be horrified, shocked; they were expecting _any_ reaction. She could see that in their faces, and worse, could hear their shame and horror, as they described what they'd found in Mann's house. Frank had cut himself off at the mention of the Polaroids, had taken several minutes to get his composure back, hands clenched, head bowed; Joe's eyes were closed, his arms crossed around himself, mouth moving silently, as if in prayer.

"You stopped him," Kris said, into the silence; her mouth felt fuzzy, heavy, thick, but she had to speak. "Remember that. You stopped him." She smiled then, despite the pain. "That little girl down in Circle Hills. Jenny Stevens. Grant'll be bringing her up for a visit — he wants to thank you, too. She's still alive. She's okay. You saved _her_."

Both Frank and Joe stared, then, slowly, Joe reached to grip her hand, as Frank nodded, wiping at his face. "Thanks, tag," Frank said softly.

They picked the story back up, what they'd found in the woods, the house. It was hard for Kris to feel much past the underwater-thick haziness of the Demerol and the persistent pain. What they were saying…she remembered some of it, in bits and pieces, but disjointed, far off, as if it'd happened to someone else, a long time ago.

Joe was watching her. A few times he opened his mouth, then shut it, letting Frank take over the story, but Joe's gaze hadn't wavered. Kris closed her eyes, let the words wash over her. She knew what was coming. Joe was far too obvious when he wanted answers, both brothers far too persistent.

Their words wound down, and silence held for a long moment. Kris still had her eyes closed, breathing past the pain and nausea.

"Kris?" Joe said quietly.

"Still here," she said.

Another long hesitation. Kris opened her eyes, caught them staring at each other, mouthing words: _you ask, no, you._

Better to just get it over with. "Out with it," she said irritably. "Just ask."

The brothers exchanged looks again. "About Tom," Joe said finally. "And Sharon. Tag…what were you guys doing up there? Why —"

Kris breathed the words out. "I don't remember." She saw their expressions, sighed. "I don't. I really don't. Doc said it's the concussion —"

"_Nothing?"_ Joe's voice cracked, strung tight as if ready to snap. "But —"

"Joe, I'm _sorry._ I don't. I really, really don't." Kris stopped, struggled to think. "Something…Tom yelling at me. That's it. I sort of remember us searching that house. After that, it's blank."

Joe looked as if she'd slapped him.

"Tom _yelling _at you? But…why? That makes no sense, tag." Frank leaned forward, elbows on his knees, intent, serious. "Level, tag. Who is Tom, really? I don't buy the business associate story. He wasn't acting like one, and you weren't treating him like one. He had no reason to help us, and he and Sharon had no business being at that house. And the other gun was his, Sharon let that slip."

"All the stuff in the basement," Joe said, under his breath. "There were candles, with weird stuff carved into them. Pentagrams. Greek letters — alpha and omega. Other stuff. Chalk marks on the floor. They weren't there before."

"I saw those, too," Frank said, then hesitated. "Kris…are you in some kind of cult?"

Oh god, it'd come to that. She'd always tried to get them to accept that the "spooky stuff" was real, but she had never mentioned the Association, had never even hinted; it wasn't exactly super top-secret, but wasn't above-ground, either. Mar had warned her to keep it quiet: the Association didn't want to be common knowledge. Too much rested on it staying underground…

But now Frank and Joe were hitting square on the topic. Kris wasn't sure how to react, finally closed her eyes again. She didn't want to deal with it, not now, not with her head pounding, the world spinning, and her stomach unsure whether to stay down. "Frank…Joe…big brothers…do we really need to talk about this right now?" Plaintive, pained.

Silence again.

"Okay," Frank sighed. "Okay." He pushed to his feet. "I'm going to go get my books. I have four pages of trig to finish for tomorrow. Joe, you need anything from the house?"

Joe shook his head.

It was only a temporary delay, a temporary truce before the real storm would hit. Kris knew it. They wouldn't let it go; they'd never let it go. She waited for Frank to leave, watched Joe for a long moment. He had slumped back in the recliner, not looking at her.

"Joe," she said quietly, "I remember the monster."

She saw that hit. Joe stared at her, his face so full of expression and pain, she couldn't read him.

"I remember it," Kris said again, still quiet. "It happened. You didn't imagine it. But…" She closed her eyes again, as weariness and fatigue waved through her, "…later…_please,_ big brother_._ I'm tired, and everything hurts. _Thinking _hurts."

Another long silence.

"Sure, tag," Joe said finally, just as quietly. "Whatever you say."


	23. most important, he'd learned about life

**_AN: The end, finally. Please leave comments! Oh, yeah, and next up is the promised sequel to Voodoo Doll: "The SF Vampire"...(edit: thanks to Jilsen for the info on military discharges. MAN, Wiki gets confusing...)  
><em>**

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><p># # #<p>

It'd been a long week.

Kris had been out of school the whole time, doctor's orders, but she hadn't been allowed to do much. Quiet and bed-rest, the doctor had said, and Mar enforced it — even restricting Frank and Joe's visits to a brief after-school drop-off-the-homework and curtailing anything beyond that.

Every day, Kris saw the questions in Joe and Frank's eyes, _felt_ Frank's curiosity and concern, Joe's growing impatience and frustration. She'd never lied to them, ever, and while not answering their questions wasn't precisely _lying_, it wasn't the truth, either, and didn't sit easily.

She grew restless, and, worse, bored. She hated most TV — _Twilight Zone _reruns and _Columbo_ weren't any fun without Joe's snark and Frank's skewed attempts to out-guess the plots — and reading had made her head and eyes hurt. But then, thankfully, Friday came, the headaches had mostly eased up, and Mar finally let Kris do more than walk from bedroom to living room and back.

The house smelled of Mar's homemade chili — made with venison that Chet Morton's dad had bagged last week and had shared out with his son's friends — and the fresh, earthy green of the season's last string beans and potatoes that she and Mar had harvested from the garden that morning. Kris sat at the kitchen table, snapping off the string bean ends and tossing those scraps into the compost bin; her fingers were stained with dirt and crushed green pods.

It'd been a quiet morning, save for the radio tuned to the local pop station — which Kris turned off with an annoyed snap when some screechy teeny-bop cover of Eric Carmen came on. Mar sat with her, peeling ruby-red Winesap apples for cobbler and going over Kris's actions in Circle Hills: what Tom and Sharon had reported, both good and bad.

Not that it helped much, since Kris still couldn't remember much past the thing in the basement.

"Well," Mar said serenely, her gaze on the apple as her knife dug in, "you didn't do too badly. Once you finally realized what was up with Stacy, you at least tried to help, if in a wrong-hearted way. Though Frank and Joe did most of the work."

Kris couldn't look at her.

"But that poor man trapped down there…" Mar shook her head. "Bad business, that. Sharon said you had it calmed — until that SOB blundered in, anyway. Only God knows what happened after that." Mar glanced up, with the faint hint of a smile. "Another year, and I think we can shove you into harness."

"But…but Tom said…"

"Tom was making sure you paid attention," Mar said calmly. "You were attacked. You protected Joe. You both got out alive. Then you turned around, despite your fear, and did your best to fix the problem. That's what Blades do, daughter." With a calm, appraising eye, Mar studied the apple in her hand, then shaved off the last few remaining bits of peel. "Besides, Joshua needs someone to partner with."

Kris looked up, startled. "Josh? But he's in Korea…" She faltered, seeing Mar's expression. "Oh god, is he okay?"

"He was discharged," Mar said bitterly.

"_Discharged? _ Why?" It made no sense, none. Joshua was proud of his Army service; he'd served in Vietnam, leading guerrilla units, and his mage-Gift had made him extremely good at it — he'd gotten several commendations for his actions in combat and recon.

Mar sighed. "It's personal. Don't bring it up unless he does. But he's back at Bay Area." Mar sat back, regarded her. "We'll be moving back, too, at the end of the school year."

Kris had only been out of it a day or so, and the whole world had decided to go nuts. _"Mar!"_

"Boston doesn't need me any longer," Mar said, still calm, still serene. "West Coast does. It took a lot to convince them to wait even that little bit, daughter. I'm taking over commanding the Blades for the western US."

Shock on top of total _disaster._ Bayport was her home. Her friends were here, her home was here, she'd finally started to fit in at school, thanks to the new girls' soccer team (a sport that she not only was good at, but had found that she _liked_), and Frank and Joe…

Oh god, how to tell them?

Today had been a teachers' meeting, so there'd been no school. She'd been waiting all morning for Frank and Joe to get free of their aunt and come over, to finally start demanding answers on Circle Hills, now that Kris was obviously up and around.

The brothers had been out doing yard work under Aunt Gertrude's gimlet eye while Kris and Mar had been harvesting the garden that morning, so they knew she was better. Dirt-smeared and bedraggled, Joe had been hauling the wheelbarrow across the Hardys' yard to the vegetable garden; Frank raked up leaves and calmly pointed out spots Joe had missed with the compost. Then Joe had spotted Kris, had nudged Frank, then had snatched an apple from the gnarled tree and tossed it over the fence to her. Kris had managed to catch it with only a little fumbling, and both brothers' faces had lit up…

…well, Joe had been grinning until Aunt Gertrude called out for him to come get a second load of compost for the garden, anyway.

Kris was dreading their coming over, but now her stomach tangled into knots. It was going to be hard enough explaining Tom, but trying to explain why she and Mar were moving…?

"_Amá,"_ Kris said finally, "I have trouble. Big trouble."

Mar's mouth quirked. "Frank and Joe, of course."

Kris had long given up trying to hide anything from Mar. But she still hedged around the real issue. "That monster. Something happened, _amá._" Kris looked down; what she'd done was technically a huge violation of Association ethics, but there'd been no time to consider alternatives. "When I hooked into Joe's Gift. I got _slammed._ Like I'd grabbed a power main."

Mar shrugged. "Fear-rush."

Fear and anger boosted the Gifts, but not that much. Kris shook her head. "More than that. I had visible shields all the way out here," she held her arm out partway, "and they sparked when hit. Enough to hold that thing off. And it wanted Joe. It was going for him."

"He's mage-Gifted," Mar said, as if that explained everything. "And untrained, he's broadcasting _good-eats-here_ to whatever wishes to look." She sighed. "Right now, that hard-headed skepticism of theirs is his best defense."

"No," Kris said, trying to get it into words, struggling to remember how it'd felt, what had happened. "It wasn't his Gift doing the shields. I was. He was boosting _mine."_

Now Mar set the paring knife down, gave Kris a long, considering look.

"Mar?"

"Little feather," Mar said quietly, "for the sake of your 'big brothers', quiet it. Lock it down, keep it close. Who else have you — no, never mind, you probably don't remember."

"But what was it?"

"Think on it. Think on what you just said."

Kris stared…then it clicked. _"Amplifier?_ Joe's an _amp?_"

"_Kris..."_

The warning made no sense. "But that's not that rare. What's the big deal? He'd be so useful —"

"That's exactly it. A Gift that can boost others. He'd be taken. Broken. Traded, used. Not just the feds, but other agencies. Other governments. Mercenaries." Mar leaned forward, gripped Kris's hand. "For now, until Joe accepts being Gifted, until he's ready to believe you, it's best that he not even know about it. What he doesn't know, he can't let slip. Nor can it be forced from him."

A cold chill ran through Kris. She and Mar were moving away. If she couldn't get Joe to believe it, to accept it before that point, then she'd be leaving him defenseless…

"You can't force him to walk your road," Mar said. "If he can't — or won't — accept it, that is his choice."

"But can't you show —"

"You know better." Mar fixed her with a look. "Let's say I give them that proof. I show them I'm a telepath. What then? We've been living next door for years, and their father's a private eye who takes on government work. No matter what I say, their trust will break, and they'll be so certain of their own wrong-headed truth that they won't listen otherwise. And that, daughter, will shatter your friendship — and _that _will leave Joe even more open to certain agencies."

Kris bit her lip. "They were asking. The big question. About Tom. They figured out he's not just a suit. That there's something else going on."

"Then you have a choice," Mar said.

Kris said nothing.

"You can lie." Still quiet. Still calm. "With all that would entail. Or just keep your mouth shut."

Lie. To Frank and Joe. To her 'big brothers' who'd given her nothing but support and trust all these years, who'd never once lied to her. Who'd always told her the truth, no matter how bad, no matter how unpleasant. No matter how much she'd ever wanted to hear otherwise. And they trusted her back…

"_Kris doesn't lie,"_ Joe had said. She couldn't break that trust. Even over this.

Keeping silent? Just as bad. Frank and Joe would never fully accept it, would keep picking at it, poking and prying until they crossed someone else's line — not necessarily the Association's — and that someone could act far harsher, with far more retaliation…

No. Kris couldn't do that.

"Or," Mar said, "you tell them the truth."

Kris raised her head.

Mar met her gaze calmly. "The Association's not top-secret, daughter. We're never that. It's your choice. Your decision. Your trust. Just leave my Gift out of it, for now."

Her trust…

Kris sat there a long moment. _"If you're ready to ask the question, you're ready to hear the answers,"_ ran one of the Blades' aphorisms, right along with _"Be aware of your choice…and beware refusing it."_ Well, Joe and Frank had asked the question.

But her choice: to lie…or just keep quiet…or…

It wasn't a choice at all, really. Not anymore.

Time to end the defensive game, then. Kris pushed to her feet, through the living room, through the front door, to the Hardys' house. Bright, clear autumn day, one of those rare cloudless blue skies that hurt to look at; just a touch of chill, the woody smell of fallen leaves. She stood on the Hardys' front porch, took a deep breath, then rang the doorbell. There. Too late to back out now.

"Hi," Kris said, when their aunt answered. The scent of pot roast wafted out the open door. "Frank and Joe in?"

"If you're going to get them out of my kitchen," Aunt Gertrude said tartly, "you're welcome to them."

"She doesn't want to admit we're her favorite tasters," Joe said behind her, and grinned into Gertrude's eyebrows-raised mock-glare.

Aunt Gertrude hmphed. "Tasting involves a spoon, not a plate and fork."

Typical Joe-tactic to get out of his aunt's chores: be _too_ helpful. "Hey," Kris said quietly, to Frank and Joe, "can we talk?"

She saw the glance they exchanged, and nearly turned around and fled back to Mar. No. They'd asked; they had to be ready for the answer.

The Hardys' stoop, too busy. Too much chance of being overheard by their dad or aunt, or of being interrupted by one of the Hardys' friends. Silently, Kris headed for her own back patio, snagged Cokes from the fridge, and waited until they were both sprawled over the patio chairs and watching her, waiting.

Then Kris told them the truth.

_# # end # #_

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><p><em>(the tale picks up again three years later in "Blood Circles: Voodoo Doll"...)<br>_


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